Aramac - Culture and History

The area was first explored by Europeans and settled in the 1850s. The town was named after Robert Ramsay Mackenzie who, at the time, was the part-lessee of 52 runs, totalling 1536 sq. miles. Mackenzie, really nothing more than a land speculator, was Queensland's first treasurer and future premier. He was of limited talent and left no great impression on the public life of the newly formed colony.

William Landsborough explored the area in 1859 and called a nearby watercourse Aramac Creek. In a letter he explained: 'The Aramac, as many wrong reasons for the name have been given, I may say here I named, in honour of the late Sir R. R. Mackenzie, 'Ar-Ar-Mac', who was so well known in Queensland, and who had acted in a very friendly way to me'. The name stuck.

The area was settled in the 1860s and the town, which seems to have had the alternative name of 'Marathon' for a short time, acquired the inevitable services - a pub, a grocery and drapery.

The town was surveyed in 1875 but by that time the wide streets (apparently one of the locals had been impressed by the streets in Melbourne and had decided to copy them) were established and the surveyor simply confirmed the strangely disproportionate design. By any measure the streets are uncharacteristically wide for such a small settlement.

In 1909 Aramac Shire Council, still isolated from the surrounding area, borrowed £66 500 and built a tramway connecting the town to the main railway line at Barcaldine. The tramway operated until 1975.

Little is known about the area's original inhabitants although it is known that there was a massacre of more than 25 local Aborigines at Mailman's Gorge.