Throughout the Australian colonies in the search for gold had been stimulated by the belief that mining could satisfy two main objectives of colonization; the settlement of a permanent population and the investment of capital in local industry, however it was the need for immediate funds that prompted the economies to offer rewards for the discovery of gold.
Canoona, on the Fitzroy River just north of Rockhampton, is remembered for the first payable gold ever obtained in Queensland, its finding in 1858 seemed to preface a great future for the colony, proclaimed Queensland the next year. However the failure of the Canoona field tarnished hopes of an immediate relief from the financial crisis of the new colony, so desperately in need of funds that in September 1860, less than one year after separation from New South Wales, the Surveyor-General was instructed to spend the sum of £500 to finance a Gold Exploration Expedition out of Brisbane. At the same time, the poverty of the new Colonial Administration influenced the government to offer a reward of £3000, quickly raised to £5000, for the discovery of good goldfields and individual rewards ranging from £200 to £1000 for each person finding payable gold.
Gold was discovered further south on the Mary River later in the same year and a great number of the Fitzroy region's prospectors hurried to the Mary River diggings, but those who remained in the region were more than ever convinced that good gold would be discovered thereabouts, they spread out and continued the search in the ranges north and east of the Fitzroy River. Though no spectacular mines were found until the discovery of the great Mount Morgan mine it was these prospectors who opened up the area for the settlers that followed.