While the 1890s Yowah opal mining boom briefly brought fortune to Eulo, it was Isabel – the local publican – who brought the town lasting fame.

By the early 1900s it was generally recognised that if you had not met one of Queensland’s big three – the Eulo Queen, champion shearer Jack Howe or Jimmy Ah Foo of Longreach fame – then you had simply not seen Queensland.

Isabel’s first investment in Eulo came with her purchase of the now long-gone Royal Mail Hotel in 1889. Then married to the second of her three husbands – Richard Robinson – she was a gifted publican with an abundance of both charm, musical ability and conversational skills to draw in both miner, drover and traveller alike to her establishment.

With opals in free flow as a default local currency, Isabel began to appear in her bar covered with jewellery. Her fame spread far and wide. Men travelled hundreds of miles to see her.

The Eulo Queen was a very shrewd business woman who amongst other commercial interests soon owned another hotel and the general store in Eulo. Though she made a lot of money she also spent a lot. Isabel was known for extreme generosity. If she thought a man worth helping then she was willing to advance him money for an outfit while providing horses, wagonette, gear and food from her own store.

These diverse interests meant Isabel continued to prosper even after the opal boom faded in the early 1900s. A series of financial mishaps followed soon after by the death of her beloved third husband Herbert Gray in the First World War in 1916 however, left her in a tragic position in town.

Reliant on her war widow pension, she eventually left Eulo in 1922 and died aged 79 in a mental home in Toowoomba in 1929.

Today the Eulo Queen Hotel here celebrates the legacy of this remarkable woman who single handedly ensured the town of Eulo would be long remembered as a true outback icon.

REMINISCENCE OF MEETING THE OPAL QUEEN

We have a direct first hand account of what it was like to meet the Opal Queen thanks to an article published in 1939 by a stockman who had travelled through Eulo in 1890. It gives us a direct sense of the lady behind the legend ...

THE OPAL QUEEN'S IMPROVISED RACE MEETING

A fascinating part of the old stockman's recollections of his time in Eulo was his sotry of how he was detained for a while to train Isabels two racehorses. He stayed long enough to ride them for here in an improvised race meeting that she set up when a droving team passed through town ...