Aramac, Queensland

Aramac is a small town and locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2011 census, Aramac had a population of 299 people.GeographyAramac is located 68km north of Barcaldine, and 1280km by road from the state capital, Brisbane. It is situated on Aramac Creek, which flows into the Thomson River 60km west of town.The predominant industry is grazing. The town water for Aramac is supplied from two bores connecting into the Great Artesian Basin.HistoryIn the 1850s, pastoralist and future Premier of Queensland Robert Ramsey Mackenzie travelled through the area. He blazed a tree with the inscription 'R R Mac', which was later corrupted into the name of the town. William Landsborough also explored the area in 1859. Pastoral occupation began in 1862 on the Bowen Downs station on Reedy Creek, north of Aramac, and the Aramac Station (1863).In 1867 an employee of Aramac Station, John William Kingston, opened a bark-hut store at an outlying point on the Aramac Creek. Enlarged two years later to include a hotel (Kingston's Bazaar), Kingston's settlement was declared a town site in 1869 and surveyed as a town in 1875. It was the region's first town, and the centre of the first local-government division.