Normanton
Located in Kuthant and Kukatj country in the Gulf Savannah, 40 kilometres southeast of the mouth of the Norman River, 1640 kilometres northwest of Brisbane, just over 500 kilometres west-southwest of Cairns, and around 380 kilometres north-northeast of Mount Isa, Normanton is the Carpentaria Shire's administrative centre.
The earliest European visitors to the area came by sea, with Abel Janszoon Tasman sighting the mouth of the Norman River, which he named Van Diemen’s River in 1644. Matthew Flinders (1802) and John Lort Stokes visited the area in 1802 and 1841, respectively, but the search for the Burke and Wills expedition saw it come under closer scrutiny.
Ludwig Leichhardt had passed through the area on his way from the Darling Downs and Port Essington in 1844. Burke and Wills made their final dash towards the Gulf from their northernmost camp (#119), around thirty kilometres west of present-day Normanton.
When overland search parties led by William Landsborough and Frederick Walker and a seaborne party commanded by Captain W.H. Norman visited the area in 1861 and when Landsborough explored the river, he named it after his maritime colleague.
Frederick Walker, one of the many explorers who went looking for Burke and Wills, was the man who named the Norman River after the Commander of H.M.C.S. Victoria, Captain W.H. Norman. But it wasn’t until 1867, when William Landsborough sailed up the Norman River, that the site for the present day settlement of Normanton was chosen.
Landsborough's report subsequently brought pastoralists to the Gulf country, and by 1867 there was a settlement on the site that became Normanton, which was proclaimed in August 1868. Outbreaks of fever in the Albert River settlement (Burketown) saw its population relocate to Normanton, which was deemed a healthier environment.
The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica described the town this way:
NORMANTON, a town of Normanton county, Queensland, Australia, on the river Norman, 25 m. E. by S. of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and 1382 m. direct N.W. of Brisbane. Pop. (1901) 838. It is the centre of the Carpentaria district, one of the chief sheep and cattle farming districts in the colony. Normanton is also the outlet of the Croydon and Etheridge goldfields, and of the Cloncurry copper mines. It is the terminus of the railway to Croydon, and has large meat-packing works.
