Quilpie

Quilpie ( KWIL-pee) is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Quilpie, Queensland, Australia.

Quilpie ( KWIL-pee) is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Quilpie, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Quilpie had a population of 595 people.The town is the administrative centre of the Quilpie Shire local government area. The town of Toompine is also within the locality.

The economy of the area is based on the grazing and mining industries. The area has one of the largest deposits of boulder opal in the world, and also has extensive deposits of gas and oil.

Quilpie is believed to lie on the border of the Bunthamurra and Margany Indigenous Australian tribal areas.Margany (also known as Marganj, Mardigan, Marukanji, Maranganji) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Margany people. The Margany language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Quilpie Shire, taking in Quilpie, Cheepie and Beechal extending towards Eulo and Thargomindah, as well as the properties of Dynevor Downs and Ardoch.Toompine Provisional School and Duck Creek Provisional School both opened in 1900. In 1901 they became half-time schools (meaning they shared a single teacher between the two schools). Toompine Provisional School closed in July 1902, enabling Duck Creek Provisional School to revert to full-time status. Due to low student numbers, Duck Creek Provisional School closed in 1905.Quilpie was gazetted as a town in 1917 owing to the Western railway line that was laid down from Brisbane. It takes its name from the Indigenous Australian word for stone curlew, quilpeta. The name was proposed by pastoralist James Hammond of Tenham Station. The Queensland Railways Department mistakenly named the railway station Quillpill. The town and station name were standardised to Quilpie on 16 June 1917 by the Governor in Council.Quilpie State School opened on 10 September 1918. The school began offering secondary education in 1966. On 5 December 2008 it was renamed Quilpie State College.The first post office was opened in 1921. Two years later the telephone reached Quilpie .A fire destroyed a block of the main street in 1926. With no town water the residents watched helplessly.In 1927 the first court house was established.Prior to 1930, Quilpie was within the Shire of Adavale, headquartered at Adavale. However, the decision to route the railway line through Quilpie rather than Adavale had led to a population drift away from Adavale making Quilpie the larger town. On 17 July 1930, there was a re-organisation of local government in the district, resulting in the abolition of the Shire of Adavale and the creation of the Shire of Quilpie with Quilpie as its headquarters.A bore was sunk into the Great Artesian Basin in 1933. It provided drinking water for the town and for a period between 1952 and 1963 the hot water was used to generate electricity for the town.St Finbarr's Catholic School opened in early 1950, shortly after the arrival in January 1950 of three Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, Sisters Macrina, Carmel and Magdalen. By the end of 1950, over 60 children were enrolled. A boarding school for boys and girls was opened in 1951. The first lay teacher, Michael West, was appointed in 1983. When the boarding facility closed in 2008, it was the last rural Catholic primary boarding school in Queensland. In 2009, the first lay principal, Aaron Wells, was appointed and the administration of the school passed from the Sisters to the Catholic Education Office of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba who operate the school in the Mary MacKillop tradition (MacKillop being the founder of the Sisters of St Joseph).Goombie State School opened on Goombie Station (north of Quilpie at 26.1126°S 144.1348°E? / -26.1126; 144.1348? (Goombie Station)) on 27 January 1970 and closed on 9 December 1977.At the 2001 census Quilpie had a population of 645. Around 14% of the population of Quilpie identity as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and around 2% were born outside Australia.The current Quilpie Public Library building opened in 2005.At the 2006 census Quilpie had a population of 560.At the 2011 census Quilpie had a population of 574 people.

Quilpie has a semi-arid climate with hot summers and mild, spring-like winters.