Bowen Harbour Board Building

Bowen Harbour Board Building is a heritage-listed office building at 6 Herbert Street, Bowen, Whitsunday Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1921. It is also known as Queensland Transport and McDonald Hamilton & Company. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.HistoryThe former Bowen Harbour Board building was constructed in 1921 for Bowen shipping agents McDonald Hamilton & Company.During the second half of the nineteenth century the expansion of settlement in North Queensland caused increasing problems with the carriage of freight to and from southern supply centres. In response to this problem the New South Wales Government, in 1859 (i.e. prior to the separation of Queensland), offered a reward for the discovery of a suitable harbour north of Port Curtis (Gladstone) that could be more easily accessed by northern settlers. Captain Henry Daniel Sinclair, owner of the Santa Barbara, who in August 1859 departed Sydney in order to locate such a suitable harbour, undertook this mission. On the 15th October 1859 Sinclair's party found such a site, and subsequently named it Port Denison. The first settlers began arriving as early as 19 March 1861. The settlement was officially proclaimed on the 11th April 1861 (after the separation of Queensland), and named Bowen after the Queensland Governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen. The township of Bowen quickly grew to support the northern pastoral industry as a strategically placed supply centre and over the course of several decades the town developed into a thriving commercial port.