Biloela

Biloela is a rural town and locality in Shire of Banana, Central Queensland, Australia.

Biloela is a rural town and locality in Shire of Banana, Central Queensland, Australia. It is situated 120 kilometres (75 mi) inland from the port city of Gladstone at the junction of the Burnett and Dawson highways. Biloela is the administrative centre of Banana Shire, which has an area of 15,729 square kilometres (6,073 sq mi). In the 2016 census, Biloela had a population of 5,758 people.

The town was established on what is Gangulu tribal lands. Gangalu is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Gangula country. The Gangula language region includes the towns of Clermont and Springsure extending south towards the Dawson River. There was a ceremonial bora ground behind what is now the main street of Bileola and the local entombment custom was to place the skeletal remains of their dead in hollowed out burial trees which were specially marked with red ochre. Dingoes were used in the process of mustering and killing of kangaroo and emu for food.

British colonisation began in 1854 when Frederick Morton established a large squatting pastoral property in the area which he named Prairie. This leasehold comprised around 500 square miles of land in the Callide valley and Morton built his homestead not far from the present day location of the town of Biloela. Morton initially ran Prairie as a sheep station but later it was used to farm cattle.In 1864, Morton decided to "disperse" a group of Aboriginal people for the taking of some sheep. He and other local settlers, armed and mounted on horses, set off on a night-time attack on a local Aboriginal camp. The people in the camp were made aware of the oncoming horsemen and set up an ambush. Morton's group was either warned at the last minute of the impending ambush or, according to historian John Bird, they were beaten back by the Aboriginal counter-attack and forced to retreat.In 1873 the Native Police detachment of Alexander Douglas "broke up the camps and dispersed the most dangerous offenders". An enquiry into 'the late massacre of the "black innocents"' heard that Harry, an Aboriginal man who had committed an outage on a woman, was shot by Douglas when he tried to escape. It was reported that "since his death, reports have been made out to make him out 'an innocent black', hence the enquiry".The enquiry exonerated Douglas and found that he had done a "great deal of good in this district" and that "no outrages or robberies have been committed since; before, they were of daily occurrence" The local colonists signed a petition for him to conduct further patrols. An Aboriginal survivor of Douglas' raids named Etamitcham later described how as a child he and his family were chased over the Kroombit Mountains to avoid "being shot down." Aboriginal people who were employed on Prairie Station thought themselves to have "an excellent opportunity for hilarious abandon" and "well compensated" by being paid with trinkets and tobacco.In 1886, most of Prairie was subdivided and sold off, with Montague Beak coming into ownership of what remained. Prairie was then resumed by the government in 1925 and completely divided into small land selections for urban development.

The name Biloela is generally believed to come from an Aboriginal word for cockatoo. The Government dockyards in Sydney were known as Biloela during 1871–1913 in an endeavour to remove the perceived stigma of the prior Cockatoo Island convict establishment.The town was gazetted in 1924; it was on the Rannes-Monto railway line. Land sales were held in Rannes in December 1924.Biloela Post Office opened by January 1925.Biloela Provisional School opened on 22 June 1925 and become Biloela State School in 1928. An opportunity class commenced on 29 January 1975, becoming a special education unit in January 1979. On 4 February 1957 a secondary department was opened, closing when Biloela State High School opened on 28 January 1963.St Joseph's Catholic Primary School was established by the Sisters of Mercy and opened on 31 January 1939. The Sisters operated the school until 1980 when the first lay principal was appointed.The first open-cut mine was established in 1942.

In 1963, work began on the Callide Power Station.

Throughout the decade of 2010, Queensland Police in Biloela saw a surge in criminal cases and hospitalisations involving drug abuse, with initial investigations into the matter beginning in 2018 leading local investigators to apprehend various "suspicious individuals" residing in the neighbourhood of Don Street as a potential source of the drug abuse case. Among the five suspects questioned in the investigation, a 20-year-old Postal Driver was arrested and eventually charged for distribution of restricted substances.After "The Postal Driver" was incarcerated for the offence, the Chief of Police in Biloela accepted an interview with local media, stating that local authorities expect the marginalised Aboriginal Australian population of Biloela to "benefit greatly from cleaner streets", and that "the children of Biloela can visit the local skate park safely now that the local supply of drugs has been stopped", although ending the interview stating that he did not expect the problem of drug abuse to be "gone for good", stating that Biloela as a community must stay vigilant regarding the substance abuse issue.

Biloela has a warm subtropical climate, with hot to warm temperatures all year round. Winter nights can occasionally drop below freezing; however, winters are usually warm and dry, with pleasant sunny days. Summers are hot and humid, with most rain falling with occasional thunderstorms. Record temperatures have ranged from 43.1 °C (109.6 °F) to -4.7 °C (23.5 °F). The wettest 24-hour rainfall was 199.6 millimetres (7.86 in) on 31 January 1978.