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Birdsville is located on land in the Channel Country of Central West Queensland, Australia. Before Birdsville was established by British settlers, the whole region was inhabited by indigenous Australians, speakers of the Wangkangurru language (also known as Arabana/Wangkangurru, Wangganguru, Wanggangurru or Wongkangurru), whose home range stretched from Birdsville south towards Innamincka and Lake Eyre, including the modern local government areas of the Shire of Diamantina as well as the Outback Communities Authority of South Australia.
Although British explorers had passed through the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s, pastoralists did not occupy this semi-arid region until the mid-1870s. Brothers Hector and Norman Wilson formed "The Bluff" property around the present site of Birdsville in 1875 as an outpost of their massive Coongy station across the border in South Australia. The Bluff property was also known as Salmonville. Nearby pastoral stations of Annandale, Pandie Pandie, Glengyle and Roseberth were taken up in 1876; and Carcoory in 1877.
Conflict in the region during this time included several large massacres of the resident Aboriginal people being perpetrated. For instance in 1879, Sub-Inspectors Henry Kaye and Henry Gough of the Native Police, together with troopers and stockmen from The Bluff and other properties, conducted a sweeping patrol for the perpetrators of the murder of a stockman. They came across two camps of Aboriginal people and dispersed them. A pastoralist on the nearby Warburton Creek reported to the Police Commissioner in Adelaide that 67 people were killed in these raids and that survivors from the violence had fled to his property.
There are a number of different theories as to the origin of the name Birdsville. One is that the name was suggested by Robert Frew, owner of Pandie Pandie Station, who also had a store and shop at the Diamantina Crossing, in reference to the prolific bird life in the district. The other is that a store was established by Percy Bird and George Field and they called it Birdfield. However, in 1882, G. and R. Wills, of Adelaide, misaddressed a consignment of goods as going to Birdsville and that name stuck. Another is that a man named Burt established a store and called it Burtsville which corrupted to Birdsville. Whatever its origin, by 1882, the name Birdsville was in common use. The name was adopted in the 1885 survey and was formalised at the proclamation of town in 1887.
In 1881, Hector and Norman Wilson sold The Bluff (Salmonville) property for £19,000. Outside of their pastoral business, the brothers resided in Melbourne where they were the driving force behind the establishment of the Melbourne Racing Club, the Coongy Cup and the Caulfield Cup.
In the early 1880s the towns of Birdsville and Bedourie were established to service the newly taken up pastoral holdings of the Diamantina. Reputedly, a merchant named Matthew Flynn, who carried stores for the stations, built a rough depot in the late 1870s at the site of the present town of Birdsville, then known as the Diamantina Crossing, on the stock route from Boulia south to Adelaide. By mid-1885, when the township of Birdsville was officially surveyed, a number of buildings had been erected at the Diamantina Crossing, including a police lock-up (1883), Groth's Royal Hotel (c. 1883), William Blair's Birdsville Hotel (c. 1883), Curtain's Tattersalls Hotel, and at least 3 stores and 1 shop.[citation needed]
When it was proclaimed, the town had three hotels, two stores, a customs house for interstate trade, a police station and a large collection of commercial buildings.
Diamantina Shire was established in 1883, and its headquarters were at Birdsville until moved to Bedourie in 1953. Birdsville Post Office opened on 1 January 1883.
Birdsville, over 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) west of Brisbane and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) north of the Queensland-South Australian border, developed as an administrative centre for police and border customs. Birdsville is located at the border of South Australia and Queensland to collect tolls from the droves of cattle being moved interstate. Nearly all the trade of the town was with Adelaide, and it became an important marshalling point for cattle being driven south to markets in South Australia. By 1889 the population of Birdsville was 110, and the town had 2 general stores, 3 hotels, a police station, school, 2 blacksmith shops, 2 bakers, a cordial manufacturer, bootmaker, saddler, auctioneer & commission agent, and a number of residences. The population peaked in 1895 at 220.
Birdsville State School opened on 14 August 1899. The school closed in 1948 and has subsequently reopened.
Circa 1900, Birdsville had a population of over 300. It had three hotels, a cordial factory, blacksmith store, market gardens, police and customs facilities but after Federation in 1901, the tolls were abolished and the town fell into decline to about 50 people throughout the 1950s. Livestock trade kept the region alive and since then tourism has joined cattle as the major industry in the area.
Tom Kruse operated the Birdsville Track mail run from 1936 to 1957, driving his Leyland Badger truck. He delivered mail and other supplies including general stores, fuel and medicine to remote stations from Marree in north-west South Australia to Birdsville, some 325 miles (523 kilometres) away. Each trip would take two weeks and Kruse regularly had to manage break-downs, flooding creeks and rivers, and getting bogged in desert dunes.
In 2007, there was just one hotel serving canned or bottled beer, a library, a visitor information centre, a museum and a hospital.
