Alpha
Located 396 kilometres west of Rockhampton and 486 kilometres south of Townsville, in Yagalingu Country within the Barcaldine Region, the rural town and locality of Alpha takes its name from the Alpha Pastoral Station, established in 1863.
After New South Wales Surveyor-General Sir Thomas Mitchell visited the area in 1846, his favourable reports brought pastoralists into the area in the 1850s.
By the late 1860s, the growth of the Rockhampton hinterland prompted the construction of a railway line. Work on the line began in 1867, and it reached Emerald in 1879. Alpha began as a temporary terminus after the line opened in 1884, survived after the construction camp moved west and became a coach stop for a service to Tambo.
