If you’re looking for outback history in Winton, you will find it alive and well in the old Corfield and Fitzmaurice building. Heritage listed, it stands proudly in Elderslie Street more than 130 years after two pioneering teamsters established the store. The general store they built serviced Winton and district well through two world wars, and beyond.

It ceased operations as a general store in the 1980s, but in 1992 an incorporated local community association was formed to utilise the building and in 1994, a craft shop was opened there.

Today, the building is home to a number of displays, changing over the years. Step inside to discover a life-size diorama of the fossilised dinosaur footprints at the Lark Quarry Trackways which is itself an Australian Heritage site. Complementary to the diorama are huge dinosaur bones and fossils, loaned for display purposes by the Australian Age of Dinosaurs. See the bones and plant food that sauropods would have munched on 65 to 95 million years ago.

The Corfield and Fitzmaurice building has two other displays. In one corner, the Queensland Boulder Opal Association has a local opal display and information. And, hanging from rafters inside the building is an intriguing graphic display of four double-sided floating panels showing how the store – and Winton itself – began in the days of bullock wagon, horse and cart.

There is a fee to visit the displays, although you can enter the Combo Crafts part of the complex for free. (The complex is open from March to December.)