Bakers Creek is a rural town and coastal

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...

in the

Mackay Region The Mackay Region is a local government area located in North Queensland, Queensland, Australia. Established in 2008, it was preceded by three previous local government areas with modern histories extending back as far as 1869. It has an estima ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia. In the , the locality of Bakers Creek had a population of 1,161 people.

Geography

Bakers Creek is located south of

Mackay Mackay may refer to: *Clan Mackay, the Scottish clan from which the surname "MacKay" derives Mackay may also refer to: Places Australia * Mackay Region, a local government area ** Mackay, Queensland, a city in the above region *** Mackay Airpor ...

. The

Bruce Highway The Bruce Highway is a major highway in Queensland, Australia. Commencing in the state capital, Brisbane, it passes through areas close to the eastern coast on its way to Cairns in Far North Queensland. The route is part of the Australian Na ...

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 Queensland Rail (QR) is a railway operator in Queensland, Australia. Owned by the Queensland Government, it operates local and long-distance passenger services, as well as owning and maintaining approximately 6,600 kilometres of track and relate ...

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 (under 10 metres above sea level) 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 Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

and there is a network of

cane tramways The rail network in Queensland, Australia, was the first in the world to adopt narrow gauge for a main line, and now the second largest narrow gauge network in the world, consists of: *the North Coast Line (NCL) extending from Brisbane to R ...

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 I. 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 (a

receiving office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

had been open since 1909) and closed in 1979. In 1943, a

USAAF The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

aircraft crashed in the locality, killing 40 of the 41 people on board. The

Bakers Creek air crash The Bakers Creek air crash was an aviation disaster that occurred on 14 June 1943, when a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft crashed at Bakers Creek, Queensland, Australia. The aircraft took off from Macka ...

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 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

, Bakers Creek had a population of 770. In the , the locality of Bakers Creek had a population of 1,161 people.

Economy

The main industry is a large meat processing plant operated by Thomas Borthwick & Sons (Aust) Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of NH Foods. Cattle are obtained from the Central Highlands and Coalfields through to the

Atherton Tableland The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. The principal river flowing across the plateau is the Barron River. It was dammed to form an irrigation reservoir named Lake Tina ...

s, North Western Districts onto the

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria (, ) is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea (the body of water that lies between Australia and New Guinea). The northern boundary is ...

. 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 ''Halal'' (; ar, حلال, ) is an Arabic word that translates to "permissible" in English. In the Quran, the word ''halal'' is contrasted with ''haram'' (forbidden). This binary opposition was elaborated into a more complex classification kno ...

meat.

Education

Dundula State School is a government primary (Prep-6) school for boys and girls at 1 Main Street (). In 2016, the school had an enrolment of 48 students with 4 teachers (3 full-time equivalent) and 8 non-teaching staff (3 full-time equivalent). In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 68 students with 5 teachers (4 full-time equivalent) and 10 non-teaching staff (5 full-time equivalent).

References

External links