Winton is an outback town and locality in the Shire of Winton in Central West Queensland, Australia. It is northwest of Longreach. The main industries of the area are sheep and cattle raising. The town was named in 1876 by postmaster Robert Allen, after his place of birth, Winton, Dorset. Winton was the first home of the airline Qantas. In the , the locality of Winton had a population of 856 people.
Geography Winton lies on the north bank of the Western River, a braided river that often runs dry, made of many small channels, a landform that gives this region, the Channel Country, its name. The Western is joined from the north by Jessamine Creek and Mill's Creek, both braided streams. Mistake Creek, likewise a braided stream, empties into the Western from the south. The Western itself flows westwards, eventually emptying into the Diamantina River at one of only three major confluences on that river. This lies some 60 km downstream. This puts Winton in the Lake Eyre basin. The land in the area is mostly flat grassland, which lends itself rather well to pastoral activity, an industry of some local importance to this day. Winton lies at the junction of the Kennedy Developmental Road and the Landsborough Highway, the two of which run concurrently from Winton's south end as far as another junction a few kilometres west of town.
Possible asteroid strike
The Diamantina River's hook-shaped upper reaches have drawn scientific attention. In March 2015, Geoscience Australia reported that the river's course at and near its headwaters flows along the edge of a roughly circular crustal anomaly that might well be an impact structure. It is an area, as described by Richard Blewett, a senior official with Geoscience Australia, in diameter, characterized by geomagnetic anomalies, and Winton lies roughly 60 km beyond its eastern edge. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that recent seismic studies undertaken there indicated that long ago an asteroid or comet struck the area releasing energy equivalent to 650 million Hiroshima A-bombs (and thus roughly 41 zettajoules). The asteroid impact has not yet been confirmed, but this could be done with core samples from the ground in the central ring structure to a depth of hundreds of metres. The impact, if indeed this is the explanation for the anomaly, would have happened roughly 300 million years ago.
Dinosaurs
The area surrounding the town has yielded a number of dinosaur fossils. In 2009, the discoveries near the town of three Early Cretaceous dinosaur genera, Australovenator, Wintonotitan and Diamantinasaurus, were announced. Australovenator wintonensis, the type specimen of that genus, is named after the town. The specimens were unearthed at the "Matilda site" not far northwest of town, on Elderslie Station (site's position roughly ), and at the "Triangle Paddock Site" right nearby. Another sauropod, Savannasaurus, was also found in this area, along with the as-of-yet unnamed "Elliot". The town also lent its name to the geological formation in which the fossils were found, the Winton Formation.
Great Artesian Basin
Winton is situated on the Great Artesian Basin and draws its water for use in the town. This water emerges at and is cooled in ponds in Corfield to before it is circulated through the town. Sulphur gas gives the water an 'eggy' smell.
As of 2018, Winton Shire Council is developing a geothermal power plant to replacing the water cooling process with one that converts the released heat into electricity. It is expected to generate 2000 megawatt hours per year.
Street names The main streets in the town of Winton were named after the stations lying in the directions in which the streets were running. For instance, east and west — Elderslie, Vindex, Cork and Dagworth. Those facing the north were called Oondooroo, Manuka, Sesbania and Werna. Three of these stations, Dagworth, Vindex and Oondooroo, figure in the Waltzing Matilda story.
Climate Winton experiences a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSh); with very hot, moderately humid summers and mild, dry winters with warm days and cool nights. Average maxima remain warm to hot year-round: from in July to in December; but temperatures can exceed in any month. Average annual rainfall, concentrated in the summer is low: . Rain occurs on an average of 31.5 days, and like much of inland Queensland, is highly variable due to ENSO.Dewar, Robert E. and Wallis, James R; 'Geographical patterning of interannual rainfall variability in the tropics and near tropics: An L-moments approach'; in Journal of Climate, 12; pp. 3457-3466 The town is very sunny, averaging 191.8 clear days and only 58.6 cloudy days annually. Extreme temperatures have ranged from on 28 June 1908 and 25 July 1968, to on 1 December 2006.
History
Traditional owners The traditional owners of the Winton area, the Koa people, consider Bladensburg National Park area (near Winton) to be a special part of their traditional country, and the park is also important to the Maiawali and Karuwali people.
Jirandali (also known as Yirandali, Warungu, Yirandhali) is an Australian Aboriginal language of North-West Queensland, particularly the Hughenden area. The language region includes the local government area of the Shire of Flinders, including Dutton River, Flinders River, Mount Sturgeon, Caledonia, Richmond, Corfield, Winton, Torrens, Tower Hill, Landsborough Creek, Lammermoor Station, Hughenden, and Tangorin.
Skull Hole, on Surprise Creek, at Bladensburg Station about from Winton, was the site of a massacre of Aboriginal people in 1877.
The Koa people have lodged an application to the Federal Court of Australia to have their native title legally recognised. This application (or "claim") was registered on 28 September 2015, by the National Native Title Tribunal. On 6 October 2021 the Federal Court recognised the Koa people as native title holders of land and waters covering 31,400 square kilometres.
Early exploration In one of Australia's greatest mysteries, the Prussian explorer Ludwig Leichhardt set off on an expedition with a group of men and animals from the Condamine River in the Darling Downs, bound for the Swan River Colony across the continent. He was last seen on 3 April 1848 at McPherson's Station, Coogoon, still on the Darling Downs. His whereabouts thereafter have never been known, but he and his men are believed to have met their end in the Great Sandy Desert. This expedition may have brought Leichhardt near Winton's future site.
William Landsborough undertook extensive exploration of both the Western and Diamantina rivers in the 1860s, and it seems likely that he might have found himself at Winton's future site at least once, for it lies on the former. In 1866, Landsborough led another expedition up the Diamantina, which would have taken him to within 60 km of the actual site, albeit not right to it.
The first European settlers in the area came in 1866, but many did not stay very long because a drought struck within a few years. The town's true birth came with a sequence of events, both natural and manmade, which gave rise to one new town in Central West Queensland, but also sowed the seeds for another's failure.
Winton's founding and early days Robert Allen, a former police sergeant, left Aramac about 1875 and moved west to the Pelican Waterholes (about west of the town's current site), where he set up a shop and a public house the next year. The heavy rains that same year, however, brought Allen a great deal of woe, and he even "was compelled by floods to remain two days on the wall-plate of his building." When the flooding had abated somewhat, Allen shifted what was left of his business to Winton's current site.Corfield's book Reminiscences of Queensland 1862–1899, 1921 Robert Allen is thus held to be the town's founder.
Winton's entrenchment as this pioneering region's business hub was secured only by a quirk of fate, as William Henry Corfield's written record makes clear. He and some acquaintances set out to do business in an Outback town that had been surveyed and laid out by the Queensland colonial government, only to decide upon arrival in the district that it would be a better idea to found a town somewhat further east near the Pelican Waterholes, which was to become Winton. William Henry Corfield (1843–1927), later the mayor of Winton, had returned to Queensland in 1878 after suffering a bout of malaria, and wrote of his experiences as a pioneer in Central West Queensland in his book Reminiscences of Queensland 1862–1899, published in 1921:
Passing through Townsville, I met [Robert] Fitzmaurice, who told me that carrying had fallen away between Cooktown and the Palmer, and that he had left that district. He suggested that I should join with him in carrying to the western country, and added that he had been informed by a squatter that there was a good opening for a store at the Conn Waterhole, on the Diamantina River. This is about forty miles [60 km] down the Western River from where Winton now is.
The Conn Waterhole to which Corfield referred is a body of water some down the Western River from Winton. It is the northernmost permanent waterhole in the Diamantina basin, and maps still identify it by that name today. Corfield made it clear where he meant to settle:
Our destination was Collingwood, more widely known as the Conn Waterhole, where the Government Surveyor had laid out a township situated about west of Winton.
Another man of Corfield's acquaintance, named Thomas Lynett, had left Townsville for the same destination with backing from Burns, Philp and Co. to set up a shop at Collingwood, if he deemed the newly laid out town to be suitable upon his inspection. Apparently, though, he did not, deciding that the land there was too prone to flooding. He turned back, and eventually, he, Corfield, Fitzmaurice and Robert Allen, who was already at the more easterly site, agreed to establish a centre east of Corfield's original destination of Collingwood. This was Winton's beginning. Collingwood, however, whose site was the government's choice, never truly took root, and by 1900, it was a ghost town.
At the Winton site, Corfield, Fitzmaurice, Lynett and Allen then discussed moving Allen's building northwards somewhat, back from the Western River on higher ground. Corfield wrote about the outcome:
We offered to do the work without cost, but Allen and Lynett decided to remain where they were. We had to accept the position, and agreed to build in line with the others.
This formed the base upon which Mr. Surveyor Jopp laid out the township afterwards.
"Mr. Surveyor Jopp" was George Keith Jopp, a surveyor based in Blackall. His name was to be found on the "List of Surveyors licensed to act under the provisions and for the purposes of 'The Real Property Acts of 1861 and 1877'", which was published in Wright's Australian and American Commercial Directory and Gazetteer in 1881. Corfield's book also tells the locally well known story of how Winton got its current name:
The original name for the town – now known as Winton – was Pelican Water-holes. Bob Allen, the first resident, whom I have mentioned, acted as post-master. The mail service was a fortnightly one, going west to Wokingham Creek, thence via Sesbania to Hughenden. There was no date stamp supplied to the office, but by writing "Pelican Water-holes" and the date across the stamps, the post mark was made, and the stamps cancelled. This was found to be very slow and unsatisfactory.
Allen was asked to propose a name, and he suggested that the P.O. should be called "Winton." This is the name of a suburb of Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, and Allen's native place.