Bowen, Queensland

Captain James Cook named Cape Gloucester on his voyage of exploration up the Australian coast in 1770. This "cape" turned out to be an island, and Gloucester Island dominates the view from Bowen's eastern beaches. Behind the island is a bay that forms an excellent port, which the town came to be built around. The first British exploration of this bay was in 1859 by Captain Henry Daniel Sinclair, in response to a reward offered by the colony of New South Wales for finding a port somewhere north of Rockhampton.[18] Sinclair named Port Denison after the colonial governor of New South Wales, William Denison.

On 11 September 1860, George Elphinstone Dalrymple on his naval excursion in the schooner "Spitfire" to search for the mouth of the Burdekin River, landed in Port Denison. He named and climbed Mount Gordon to survey the region and observed that a river (later named the Don River) traversed a valley just behind Port Denison and into the sea. This river was "lined with camps and bush fires of the natives" indicating "the locality to be very thickly inhabited". The "Spitfire" continued its exploration north to Magnetic Island, but the surveyors came to the conclusion that the northeastern shore Port Denison was the most suitable site in the region for settlement especially as the large native wells present in a creek bed there could be utilised as a water supply. On 5 October, Dalrymple again came ashore to appropriate control of these wells. He writes:

"As I approached the beach a number of armed natives appeared to wish to dispute our landing, but as the object in view was a necessity, I..formed open line and advanced. The natives..retired at our approach into a small strip of scrub commanding the wells. This we entered in the same order, cleared it and placed sentries.."[19]

Confident in having secured a beach-head, Dalrymple explored the immediate vicinity near the wells that was to become the town of Bowen. He found a large Aboriginal tomb in the hills behind the beach that was in the form of a raised mound covered in bark with its surroundings swept clean and the paths leading to it closed off with branches. A similar tomb was found on nearby Stone Island. After a few days, Dalrymple and his surveying party on the "Spitfire" returned south.

George Elphinstone Dalrymple

In 1861, George Elphinstone Dalrymple set out again for the area, leading an overland expedition from Rockhampton, complemented with a naval contingent to rendezvous at Port Denison and establish a permanent settlement. Dalrymple planned this two pronged entry into the area because 'a sudden cooperation of land and sea forces..would either strike terror, which would result in immediate flight, or enable a blow to be struck' against the local Aboriginal people of which many had been seen camped around the harbour. To facilitate this plan, Dalrymple travelled with Lieutenant Williams and six Native Police troopers, while Lieutenant Walter Powell and his troopers travelled on the ships. These ships were the Jeannie Dove and the Santa Barbara under the command of Capt. McDermott.

The maritime group arrived first and waited for Dalrymple's overland party by camping on Stone Island at the mouth of the harbour. Dalrymple's group, which included 140 horses and 121 cattle, arrived on 11 April 1861. He rode down to the area on the foreshore 'beside the native wells' (which was to be the water supply of the settlement) in order 'to clear off the aborigines from the same, should such be necessary' and to signal McDermott's group on Stone Island. The local Aboriginal people had already fled. The settlers on Stone Island then came over to the site and the town of Port Denison was founded. Dalrymple wrote that it was 'Deeply gratifying to me to see the British flag flying over the spot where..a few days ago, the wild aboriginal held undisputed sway', and that the settlement marked 'the advance of another great wave of Anglo-Australian energy'.[20]

Within the first six weeks of colonisation, the Native Police and armed colonists conducted at least six operations against the Aboriginal people in the area, driving them off the land and also pursuing them by sea. In one of these missions, the whole available force in the town was utilised in an engagement where a large group of Aboriginal people were "speedily put to rout with a loss sufficient to teach them a severe and it is hoped, useful lesson." Newspapers published reports that the local Aboriginal population were "wretched caricatures of the human race...faithless stewards of the fine property on which they horde," and that it was "the duty of civilisation to occupy the soil which they disregard and disgrace," and that "force and even severity may be necessary to restrain their brutal disposition." Pastoralists were quick to enter the region through this new port and mark out land acquisitions in the hinterland, while buildings within the township were rapidly constructed.[21]

After Queensland had separated from New South Wales, the town was renamed Bowen after the first Queensland colonial governor, Sir George Bowen. Port Denison Post Office opened in April 1861 and was renamed Bowen by 1865.[22]

In 1863, settlers in the area encountered a sailor, James Morrill, who had been shipwrecked 17 years previously on a shoal in the Coral Sea. He had made it to the Queensland coast on a makeshift raft with a few companions. The others had all died within two years, but Morrill lived with the local Aborigines in the Townsville area. Rejoining European society after white settlement began in North Queensland, he settled in Bowen.[23] His grave is in the Bowen cemetery.

The coral reefs around Bowen are the scene of several shipwrecks, including the SS Gothenburg, which sank in 1875 with a loss of more than 100 lives. Numerous relics of Bowen's history, from the Aboriginal past onwards, are on display at the Bowen Historical Society's museum.

Bowen State School opened in 1865. Between 1877 and 1922, it operated as two schools: Bowen Boys State School and Bowen Girls and Infants State School. A secondary department was added to Bowen State School in 1928. On 23 January 1961, the secondary department was replaced by Bowen State High School.[24]

St Mary's School was opened on 1 September 1872 by Sister M. Gertrude and Sister M. de Sales, both members of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart founded by Mother Mary MacKillop. Following to ongoing conflict between MacKillop and James Quinn, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, over who controlled the schools operated by the Sisters in Queensland, Quinn expelled the sisters from his diocese in 1880 and they returned to South Australia where the order was first established. Quinn established a group of Diocesan Sisters using the name Sisters of the Holy Family who operated the school under Quinn's direct authority until 1885, when the Sisters of Mercy took over the running of the school withSister Mary Modwena Taylor, Sister M. Stanislaus Kostka Harding and Sister M. Winifred Duggan being transferred from The Range Convent School in Rockhampton.[24][25]

Merinda Provisional School opened in 1898 and became Merinda State School on 1 January 1909. Queens Beach State School opened on 25 November 1940.[24]

Catalina flying boats from No. 11 Squadron RAAF.

During World War 2 Bowen hosted an air force base, flying PBY Catalina flying boats to search for enemy ships and submarines. The concrete aprons and ramp are still present (2013), and silhouettes of two aircraft have been painted in.

In December 2006, it was announced that Bowen was chosen as a filming location for a third of the production of Australia, directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, portraying the look of Darwin.[35] Bowen was chosen as a prospect due to the financing of $500,000 by the Queensland government.[36] The production moved to Bowen on 14 May 2007.[37]

When it was announced that Australia was to be filmed in Bowen, locals painted a large "Bowenwood" sign on an old water tank on top of a hill, in a parody of the world-famous Hollywood sign.