John Campbell Miles
100yard Memorial Sprint
In 1923, a lone, quiet and unassuming prospector John Campbell Miles, while traveling with his horse “Hard Times” on a gold prospecting trip to the Northern Territory camped by the banks of the Leichhardt River.
Sampling a nearby rock outcrop, he realised that it was heavily mineralised. Campbell Miles had stumbled on to one of the world’s richest copper, silver, lead and zinc ore bodies. He decided to call his discovery “Mount Isa” after the stories he had heard of the Mount Ida goldfield in Western Australia.
Eighty-one years later, the Mount Isa Mine now owned by Xstrata is still one of Australia’s largest producers of copper ore.
Athletics North Queensland acknowledges John Campbell Miles and his place in North Queensland history with the Women’s 100 Metre John Campbell Miles race.