Bakers Creek, Queensland


Bakers Creek is a town and coastal locality in the Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia.

Geography

Bakers Creek is located south of Mackay. The Bruce Highway and the North Coast railway line traverse the locality from south to north, passing the town which is served by the Bakers Creek railway station with a second railway station Dundula in the north of the locality. The Dundula railway station was named on 30 October 1913 by the Queensland Railways Department as an Aboriginal word meaning eucalypt tree. In turn, the surrounding neighbourhood and also the school are named Dundula.
The land in Bakers Creek is flat and low-lying and is well-watered by the watercourse Bakers Creek which flows into the Coral Sea. To the north of mouth of the creek is the Bakers Creek Conservation Park.
The land is predominantly used for growing sugarcane and there is a network of cane tramways to deliver the harvested sugarcane to the local sugar mills.

History

The locality was named after the creek, which in turn was named after John T. Baker, a customs officer in Mackay in 1863.
Dundula State School opened on 28 August 1922 with 37 children enrolled on the first day, with 45 enrolled by the end of 1922. The first headmaster was Courtney Hoffman.
Bakers Creek Post Office opened on 1 July 1927 and closed in 1979.
In 1943, a USAAF aircraft crashed in the locality, killing 40 of the 41 people on board. The Bakers Creek air crash is Australia's worst aviation disaster by death toll. A memorial to the disaster was built in 1981 and is located in the grounds of the Bakers Creek Community Hall.
In 1964 the Queensland Government built a meatworks. In 1978 it was sold to Thomas Borthwick & Sons who enlarged the facility. It was purchased by NH Foods in 1994 but continues to trade as Thomas Borthwick & Sons.
At the 2006 census, Bakers Creek had a population of 770.

Economy

The main industry is a large meat processing plant operated by Thomas Borthwick & Sons Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of NH Foods. Cattle are obtained from the Central Highlands and Coalfields through to the Atherton Tablelands, North Western Districts onto the Gulf of Carpentaria. The plants supplies the domestic market as well as export markets including Chin Europe Union, Japan, the Middle East, and the United States of America. The plant is certified to produce halal meat.

Education

Dundula State School is a primary school for boys and girls operated by the Queensland Government at 1 Main Street. In 2016, the school had an enrolment of 48 students with 4 teachers and 8 non-teaching staff.