Port Curtis
The name Port Curtis has been applied to various entities in and around the modern-day city of Gladstone since Matthew Flinders named the bay that has become Gladstone's harbour after the Royal Navy's Vice Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, the commandant of the naval station at the Cape of Good Hope. Curtis had assisted Flinders with repairs to the Investigator when the ship reached Cape Town en route from England in October 1801.
The harbour extends northwestward from the mouth of the Boyne River and lies between the mainland and Facing Island (named by Flinders) to the east. On its northern side, Curtis Island is named after the port and is separated from the mainland by The Narrows.
Surveyor John Oxley explored the area in 1823 when it was under consideration for a new penal settlement. After discovering the Boyne River, Oxley turned his attention to Moreton Bay, where he decided the Brisbane River offered better prospects.
Twenty-three years later, Port Curtis was briefly the capital of North Australia, a short-lived convict colony established in 1846 covering parts of modern-day Queensland and the Northern Territory north of the 26th parallel. When the settlement's superintendent, George Barney, arrived on the site to establish the settlement in January 1847, a change of government in London had seen the new administration cancel the project.
The town established on the harbour's shores in 1853 was officially named Gladstone, after the British Colonial Secretary, from the beginning. However, the district name prevailed in widespread usage for several decades. The Port Curtis pastoral district and the neighbouring, substantially larger Leichhardt Pastoral District were gazetted the following year.
The 1856 gold rush to Canoona, west of Rockhampton on the Fitzroy River, was described as the Port Curtis gold rush.
When Land Agent’s Districts were created to help administer settlements, crown leases and leasehold land dealings in 1868, the Port Curtis Pastoral District covered about 37.600 square kilometres from about Biloela to St Lawrence and inland towards Banana and Duringa. The principal settlements within the pastoral district's boundaries were Gladstone, Rockhampton, Yaamba St Lawrence and Mt Morgan (after 1882), with ports of entry and (pre-Federation) customs houses at the three coastal centres—smaller centres developed after gold discoveries southwest of Gladstone at Calliope and Cania. St Lawrence, Rockhampton and Gladstone were ports of entry with customs houses.
The Port Curtis Dairy Cooperative, formed in 1906, subsequently amalgamated with other producers to form branches in Bundaberg, Wowan, Mackay and Monto (1928-30) and Biloela, Bracewell and Theodore (1937-42), achieved peak production during and immediately after World War II.
Gladstone overtook Port Curtis as a place name as the city developed into a major port and industrial centre through the 1960s and 1970s, but it continues to be the name used by various local institutions and associations.
