St Lawrence

St Lawrence is a rural town and locality in the Isaac Region, Queensland, Australia.

St Lawrence is a rural town and locality in the Isaac Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census the locality of St Lawrence had a population of 235 people.

British settlement in the area began circa 1860 when John Arthur Macartney established Waverley pastora station. The township of St Lawrence was originally established to maintain the Customs Office for the Port of St Lawrence. It takes its name from one of the blocks on the Waverley pastoral station.The St Lawrence State School opened on 28 May 1871.Anglican services were held quarterly in the St Lawrence Courthouse (now the St Lawrence Police Station) until the opening of the meatworks in 1893 attracted sufficient residents to establish a church. In March 1898, Vicar Arthur Henry Julius purchased 5 acres (2.0 ha) of land at the end of Macartney Street (the main street through the town) where he said the church would be "conspicuous". The foundation block for Christ Church Anglican was laid on Saturday 21 May 1898 by Thomas Byrnes, the new Queensland Premier (and Queensland's first Roman Catholic Premier). The church was designed by Rockhampton architect, Alfred Mowbray Hutton, to seat around 100 people with a classroom for Sunday School and a bedroom for visiting clergy. The contractors were Newman Bros of Rockhampton.The St Lawrence Library opened in 2001.

At the 2006 census, St Lawrence and the surrounding area had a population of 195.St Lawrence was the administrative centre of the Shire of Broadsound until 2008, when the shire was amalgamated with the Shire of Belyando and the Shire of Nebo to form the Isaac Region local government area. Moranbah is the administrative centre of the new region but the former Broadsound Shire offices at 36 Macartney Street are still used as the local offices of the Isaac Regional Council. The building was described in 2004 as "a disarmingly elegant building which seems quite out of place in this otherwise undistinguished town".In the 2011 census, St Lawrence had a population of 396 people.In the 2016 census the locality of St Lawrence had a population of 235 people.Once a prosperous port town, exporting cattle from the hinterland, many residents are now DIDO coal miners.