Proston, Queensland

Proston is a small town and locality in South Burnett Region, Queensland, Australia. The town is located 280km north-west of the state capital, Brisbane and 50km northwest of the South Burnett regions commercial centre, Kingaroy. At the, Proston had a population of 304.The area around Proston is hilly, grassland, grazing country, most of it cleared from the original brigalow scrub that once covered the immediate vicinity.HistoryThe town was founded in 1910 with a land ballot that attracted a group of settlers from England. With little access to water, early settlers struggled to maintain a living from the land. The coming of the railway in 1923 eased some of the early hardships. The construction of the South Burnett Dairy Co-operative Butter Factory in 1934 led to even more growth.The closure of the railway line and Butter Factory in the 1970s threw the area into a long period of slow decline. The creation of the nearby Boondooma Dam in the 1970s by daming the Boyne River provided a source of water for Tarong Power Station and solved Proston's water problems.Heritage listingsProston has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: corner of Drake Street and Wondai Road: Shepherd Memorial Church of St PeterEconomyThe main agricultural activities in the Proston area are dairying, beef cattle and duboisia, a shrub used in the production of the drug butylscopolamine.