Gowrie Junction, Queensland


Gowrie Junction is a rural locality in the Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It is north-west of Toowoomba. In the, Gowrie Junction had a population of 2,120 people. The town of Gowrie is in the eastern part of the locality.

Geography

The Toowoomba Second Range Crossing passes through the southern part of the locality with no intersections.

History

The name Gowrie comes from a pastoral station operated by Henry Hughes and Frederick N. Isaac who used the name from 1847. It is thought to be a corruption of an Aboriginal word cowarie which might refer either to Gowrie Creek or mean freshwater mussel.
Gowrie Junction Post Office opened on 24 April 1876, was renamed Gowrie in 1961 and closed in 1972.
At the 2006 census, Gowrie Junction had a population of 1,217.

Facilities

Gowrie Junction contains a small shop, a school and a community hall. A shopping centre is also in the planning stages. The residents of Gowrie Junction funded and built the town recreational hall by themselves, largely through the efforts of the local progress association.
Library services in Gowrie Junction are provided by the Toowoomba Regional Council's mobile library service. The van visits Gowrie Junction State School every Thursday and Gowrie Junction Federation Hall every Saturday.

Notable residents

Possibly Gowrie Junction's best known resident remains Frank Riethmuller, born in 1884 in Glenvale outside Toowoomba, who taught at Gowrie Junction's primary school from 1899 to 1905. He probably stayed with his newly married sister, Sophia, whose husband August Bischof had a farm at Gowrie Junction. Riethmuller went on to become Australia's second-best-known rose breeder. He bred 'Carabella,' which is to be seen in country towns all round Australia. One of his pupils was a girl who became Sister Elizabeth Kenny, famous advocate of a non-chemical treatment of poliomyelitis.