It is the site of the first shop in the area set up in 1876, and displays old-fashioned machinery from the pioneering days.

While recounts are vague, Lower Burdekin Historical Society research officer Laura Scott said the shop would most likely have been a general mixed store for farmers to get their supplies.

"The fellow who ran it may have been employed by Pioneer Mill. That was the purpose of it, for surrounding people to get their supplies," she said.

"It carried, no doubt, sugar, flour, the basics very basic in the early days. And they may have sold farm tools like shovels and mattocks.

"And because there was not too much refrigeration, they may have also on certain days had meat and bread."

Alongside the tree, an old piece of machinery stamped "Ruston, Lincoln, England" could have been from the mill, Ms Scott said.

She said it was most likely used for power generation in the pioneering era.

Pioneer Mill dates back to the early 1880s.