Springsure

Springsure is a town and a locality in the Central Highlands Region, Queensland, Australia.

Springsure is a town and a locality in the Central Highlands Region, Queensland, Australia. It is 66 kilometres (41 mi) south of Emerald on the Gregory Highway. It is the southern terminus of the Gregory Highway and the northern terminus of the Dawson Highway. It is 765 kilometres (475 mi) northwest of Brisbane. In the 2016 census, Springsure had a population of 1,103 people.

Gangalu (Gangulu, Kangulu, Kanolu, Kaangooloo, Khangulu) 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.Wadja (also known as Wadjigu, Wadya, Wadjainngo, Mandalgu, and Wadjigun) is an Australian Aboriginal language in Central Queensland. The language region includesthe local government areas of the Aboriginal Shire of Woorabinda and Central Highlands Region, including the Blackdown Tablelands. the Comet River, and the Expedition Range, and the towns of Woorabinda, Springsure and Rolleston.The town takes its name from a pastoral run name used from 1861, so named because of a permanent spring on the run.The area was originally occupied by Aboriginal people, for thousands of years.

Ludwig Leichhardt was the first European to explore the area between 1843 and 1845. His favourable reports encouraged settlers to move in and settle the land whose domains were those of Aboriginal groups.

In 1861 squatter Horatio Wills and a party of Victorian settlers arrived near modern-day Springsure in 1861. Two weeks later, 19 men women and children, including Wills, were killed by Aboriginal Australian people, the Kairi or Gayiri, in the Cullin-La-Ringo massacre, the largest massacre of European settlers by Aborigines in Australian history. At least 15 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed by the Queensland Native Police and militias of local European colonists and their employees, in a series of reprisals over the months that followed. However, the massacre of the 19 European family members was itself a retaliatory response to an earlier shooting of fugitive murderer who was Gayiri tribesman by Jesse Gregson (manager of nearby Rainsworth Station) with Second Lieutenant Alfred March Patrick and Native Police Troops in his command. Prior to the massacre of the 19 colonists, Second Lieutenant Patrick had complained, in early 1861, to Charles Dutton (lessee of Bauhinia Downs pastoral lease 148 km south-east of Springsure) that other officers in the Queensland Native Police "...had been able to bag their first Aborigine after only a few weeks in the Force; he had served for six months and still had not yet killed a black." The Old Rainworth Fort was built in 1862 by the colonists of Springsure in order to defend themselves from future raids by Aboriginals. Horatio's son, star cricketer and Australian rules football pioneer Tom Wills, survived the massacre, and remained on site until 1864.

The town was surveyed by Charles Frederick Gregory in August 1863.

The Springsure Presbyterian Church in Charles Street opened about 1866. It closed in March 2011 after 145 years.Springsure State School opened on 14 March 1870.

On 6 December 1919, the Springsure State School Memorial Fountain was dedicated by Mrs Annie Wheeler (née Laurie), a former pupil at the school. The memorial is a marble fountain and commemorates students of the school who served in World War I.

In March 1925 the Rev. Father Thomas Andrew Sweeney arrived in Springsure to replace Rev. Father Bucas as the Catholic priest for the parish. Sweeney saw there was a need for a Catholic school in Springure and set about building a school and a convent for its teachers in August 1925. The architect was Roy Chipps and the builder E.H. Fletcher (both of Rockhampton). In January 1926 the school and the convent opened in a ceremony led by Roman Catholic Bishop of Rockhampton, Joseph Shiel.The convent and school were under the control of Sister Mary Bonaventure of the Sisters of Mercy. The school opened on 2 February 1926 with 64 children. It was originally known as The Convent of the Little Flower, but later changed to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.On 16 November 1943 a Douglas C-47A Skytrain broke up in mid-air during a violent storm in the area, and crashed on Rewan Station, just south of Springsure. All 19 people on board the aircraft perished in the crash.At the 2006 census, Springsure had a population of 829.

A cliff face in the hills surrounding Springsure is known to the area as Virgin Rock, named because it once looked like the Virgin Mary cradling the baby Jesus, although years of erosion have blurred the original resemblance.