История Уинтона: от трагедий до развития.

Skull Hole, on Surprise Creek, at Bladensburg Station about from Winton, was the site of a massacre of Aboriginal people in 1877. The Koa people have lodged an application to the Federal Court to have their native title legally recognised. This application (or "claim") was registered on 28 September 2015, by the National Native Title Tribunal.

In one of Australia's greatest mysteries, the Prussian explorer Ludwig Leichhardt set off on an expedition with a group of men and animals from the Condamine River in the Darling Downs, bound for the Swan River Colony across the continent. He was last seen on 3 April 1848 at McPherson's Station, Coogoon, still on the Darling Downs. His whereabouts thereafter have never been known, but he and his men are believed to have met their end in the Great Sandy Desert. This expedition may have brought Leichhardt near Winton's future site. William Landsborough undertook extensive exploration of both the Western and Diamantina rivers in the 1860s, and it seems likely that he might have found himself at Winton's future site at least once, for it lies on the former. In 1866, Landsborough led another expedition up the Diamantina, which would have taken him to within 60 km of the actual site, albeit not right to it. The first European settlers in the area came in 1866, but many did not stay very long because a drought struck within a few years. The town's true birth came with a sequence of events, both natural and manmade, which gave rise to one new town in Central West Queensland, but also sowed the seeds for another's failure.

The Federation of Australia occurred on 1 January 1901. St Patrick's Catholic School was opened on 1906 by the Sisters of Mercy. Initially the school was conducted inside the wooden church until a separate school building was built in 1911. In 1960 a new school was built and the convent was used to accommodate boarding students. The school came under lay leadership in 1985 with the appointment of Glen Perkins. Quite at odds with the usual weather complaint was what happened in Winton in 1906, for the problem then was not a dearth of rain, but a definite oversupply. In March of that year, a mailman returning to Longreach from Winton reported "very heavy rain" that week. The rainfall in the area between those two places in the first two months of 1906 was reckoned to be between 14 and 18 inches (roughly 356 to 457 mm) with consequent overflowing seen in the area's creeks and rivers. The Western was far from an exception to this, and the photograph at right shows what became of some of the town's buildings. In 1909, the telephone reached Winton and by October, it had 34 subscribers. By May 1911, improvements were being made to the post office to set the telephone exchange apart in its own section because it was becoming a "large and important branch". Indeed, there were then also plans to expand the exchange with the addition of a further switchboard to handle an expected 50 more subscribers. Winton Methodist Church opened circa March 1912. It was built from timber at a cost of £540 and could seat 160 people. Later the building was used by the Winton Christian Fellowship. On Sunday 16 August 1914, Winton's townsfolk met at the Shire Hall to form a patriotic committee to recruit volunteers for the military to go and fight in the First World War, which had broken out less than three weeks earlier. Five hundred and eighteen men and women from Winton and the surrounding district served in that war, and their fallen comrades' names can now be found on Winton's war memorial on Vindex Street, outside the Shire Hall. Winton's contribution of personnel to the war effort was proportionally one of Australia's highest, and 101 of its townsmen fell in the Great War, including a farmhand from nearby Bladensburg Station named Colin Morgan Reade, who fell at Gallipoli on 30 May 1915. His story served as a focus during Winton's observance of the centenary of that campaign in 2015. In 1916, the North Gregory Hotel burnt down for the second time.

In 1918, the Royal opened, and is still in business today. It is an outdoor cinema, one of only a few left in Australia. In 1920, a new company was founded, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited (now known as Qantas Airways), and for a while, it was headquartered in Winton. In 1925, St Paul's Anglican church burned down. A new St Paul's church waswas designed by Atkinson Powell & Conrad and built from timber in 1927. In 1927, Winton got electricity. This "electric light scheme became an accomplished fact" in January of that year, and by December, it had some 160 subscribers. As a business, it was only breaking even, and so it was hoped that there would be more subscribers in the New Year. The project's initial cost was £12,000. The Prime Minister also came to visit that year. On 2 August 1927, Mr. Stanley Bruce and his wife landed on a flight from Longreach in Winton. The town's chamber of commerce was ready with a deputation, who wished to discuss "health, railway communication links, and the export of stud sheep" with the Prime Minister, thus reflecting the day's issues of local concern. The deputation especially protested the stud sheep exports to Africa. Mr. Bruce told the deputation that his Ministry would not consider banning this practice unless the pastoral industry itself requested such action. To that end, he suggested that the deputation raise the issue with the pastoralists themselves. The Prime Minister left later that day for Hughenden, after having spent less than three hours in Winton. On 27 February 1928, a famous Australian pioneer aviator, Bert Hinkler, touched down at Winton on his way from Camooweal to Longreach; he also made intermediate stops at Cloncurry and McKinlay. Also in 1928, the Central Western railway line reached Winton from Longreach. This was the second railway to reach Winton after the line from Hughenden reached town in 1899. The newer line was hailed by one newspaper with the assertion that "It will allow capital that has been lying idle to become revenue producing, it will provide facilities for the transfer of rolling stock, it will provide quicker touch with markets and reduce transport costs, and it will insure the graziers and the State against the probable loss of millions of sheep in drought time." Despite that reporter's rosy assessment of the boon that the new railway would be to Winton's economy, the 1930s brought Winton's wool industry hard times. A meeting of the local branch of the Graziers' Association of Central and Northern Queensland in 1938 wanted to make known to the general public that for roughly a decade by that time, the revenue brought on the market by wool was outstripped by the production cost, thus incurring loss. The meeting also declared itself in opposition to any plan to register .303 rifles, but decided that their use ought to be restricted to those 18 and over. The hard times apparently even affected telephone service. In 1936, the whole vast region west of Winton, all the way to Boulia, a distance of roughly 300 km, was served by a single party line – Winton 101 – which was leased from the Winton telephone provider by the Middleton Telephone Company, a private company based in Middleton, about halfway between Winton and Boulia. Only now, the line was falling into disrepair, with attendant unreliability in the service, and there were demands for it to be assumed by the government. The foreseen cost of doing this was then said to be £28,000. Another public service was affected by these hard times, namely the ambulance brigade. A Mr. Charles Holland, from Ipswich, was the chosen one from among 25 applicants from all over Queensland to become Winton's new superintendent of ambulance services. He left Ipswich for Winton on 7 April 1930, only to be dismissed a mere six months later owing to the pitiful state of the Winton ambulance committee's finances. That same year, the Railway Department removed all stationmasters from its line between Winton and Hughenden, although the move apparently did not affect the stationmasters at those two towns. Work on dismantling a railway track that was to have been part of a considerable inland network was undertaken in 1931. The track only ever reached a short distance west of Winton. The work was partly a relief effort, with all the workmen involved in the job being drawn from the local unemployed. The two working railway links at Winton came in handy in 1932 when track washouts along the Queensland coast forced some travellers to take a long inland detour, by way of Winton. Winton railway station became very busy. On 24 May 1933, which was Empire Day, Winton was honoured with a viceregal visit in the person of Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, the Governor of Queensland. He stayed in town overnight after having arrived by train from Hughenden with his wife, Lady Wilson and his entourage and taking part in a civic reception. His party left again by train the next morning bound for Longreach. On 3 October 1934, a Qantas plane bound for Winton from Longreach, the Atlanta (in some sources, Atalanta), a de Havilland DH.50, caught fire in the air near its destination and the pilot tried, unsuccessfully, to make an emergency landing not far west of town before the fire on board set the fuel tank off. Complicating matters just then was a dust storm, which made for very poor visibility, and which later also delayed the sighting of the wreck by searchers. The aircraft came down in a ball of fire, killing the pilot and his two business passengers, one of whom, a sandalwood buyer named William McKnoe, was from Winton. Modern road conditions apparently had yet to come to Winton in 1934. A visiting pastoral company general manager, commenting on roads in western Queensland in general said that the roads in the Shire of Cloncurry were the worst in the state, but added that among streets in the state's towns, Winton's were the worst in Queensland. A heatwave struck Winton the next month, with temperatures reaching a reported on 24 November. On 5 August 1938, Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons visited Winton on an extended tour of Queensland, the first Prime Minister to visit the town since Stanley Bruce's visit in 1927. The chairman of the Shire Council, T. J. Shanahan, had a wish list for the Prime Minister. He asked for assistance from both state and federal levels for the wool industry, an "A class" radio station and a railway to the Barclay Tableland (which has never been built). Further deputations also asked for improvements to Winton's aerodrome and for national highways to be built in western Queensland. It was another nine years before Winton's demands for a radio station were met, and even then, the broadcasts were sent out from Longreach, not Winton. Nevertheless, there was proper wireless service beginning on 19 March 1947, when ABC's transmitter at Longreach came into service. Disaster struck Winton's business community in September 1938 when a fire tore through several buildings in the middle of town. Destroyed were the Royal Mail Hotel, the Olympia Picture Theatre (whose projection room was in the hotel), a building and a house owned by townsman Stanton Mellick, and a building owned by a man named William Thomson who operated a hardware and saddlery shop with his brother, James Thomson. Some of these buildings contained several businesses. The fire broke out in the cinema's spool room and spread quickly. Firefighters had to deal with low water pressure due to ongoing repairs. The damage caused by the fire was reckoned to be between £17,000 and £18,000. Nobody was injured. A new St Patrick's Catholic Church was opened on 8 May 1939 by Archbishop of Brisbane James Duhig assisted by Bishop of Rockhampton Romauld Denis Hayes and Bishop of Townsville Hugh Edward Ryan. The church building was designed by C. D. Lynch of Townsville and built by Jerry Rundle of Winton at a cost of £4,735. The first church was relocated behind the school.

In 1939, the Second World War broke out, and Australia joined the Allies. There was a proposal, which met with great enthusiasm in Winton, to form a Western Battalion. A Colonel Hoad delivered a speech in June on the proposal at the Shire Hall before "a big crowd of young men", asking them to join up to show their support for the Western Battalion. Forty men responded by joining up on the spot. In June 1942, a United States Congressman stayed overnight at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton. This was an uncommon event in itself, especially during the Second World War, but it was made all the more so because he and a number of American military personnel – including two generals – had just survived an emergency landing of The Swoose at Carisbrooke Station, about 85 km southwest of Winton, and also because the Congressman happened to be Lyndon B. Johnson, who was later to become President of the United States. On 27 June 1946, there was a royal visit as the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester came to visit Winton for half an hour. On 7 August 1946, the North Gregory Hotel burnt down, for the third time, in a fire that also consumed several other nearby businesses. Firefighters' efforts were supplemented by a bucket brigade, but even so, the blaze took three hours to quench. The damage was set at £30,000. There was no mention of injuries. In 1951, Winton held its first rodeo and it was very popular and successful. It quickly became a yearly event, and three years later, 4,700 people came into the town – whose population was then about 1,300 – for the rodeo. There was not enough room for them all at the local hotels, and 600 of them slept on stretcher beds brought into town by local graziers. There was £1050 in prize money. In 1953, a replacement for the North Gregory Hotel – this one built of brick, not wood – was nearing completion. The task had been taken on by Winton Shire Council because nobody else could be found who was willing to build the replacement. The project's estimated cost was £120,000. As of May that year, the Council still had not decided whether to run the hotel itself or to lease it to another operator. The hotel was to have amenities that were then quite uncommon in Central West Queensland, including air conditioning in the bar, the dining room and the lounge. The town was seeking to provide other, more public amenities in the late 1940s and early 1950s as well, including a £100,000 sewerage scheme and a cooling tower for the artesian bore water, which came out of the ground quite hot. The expenditure of £17,000 on this was "essential if the water is to be 100 per cent. effective for fire fighting." The same 1948 news item that announced these proposals also mentioned a project for a "municipal hotel", needed after the North Gregory Hotel had burnt down, and the foreseen cost for that was "between £30,000 and £40,000". There were obviously some cost overruns (see above). In 1962, some fossilized dinosaur tracks were discovered at a quarry and are now on display at their original site in a climate controlled building at Lark Quarry Dinosaur Trackways some southwest of Winton. On 22 September 1966, there was another aviation disaster near Winton. Ansett ANA Flight 149, a Vickers Viscount aircraft, had taken off from Mount Isa on a 73 minute flight to Longreach, when it ran into trouble 44 minutes into the flight, once an engine fire broke out. The blaze quickly spread to the fuel tank, resulting in part of the left wing breaking away. This sealed the aircraft's fate. It crashed some west of Winton, at Nadjayamba Station, killing all 24 people on board. The crash site was not very far from where the 1934 Atlanta disaster had happened. On the 40th anniversary of the accident in 2006, a memorial was unveiled in the main street of Winton. A third St Patrick's Catholic Church was built in 1970; it was a brick church. In "1972/73", a new festival began in Winton, the Outback Festival. This is held every other year, in odd numbered years, in September, and was originally conceived as something that would boost Winton's local economy, for the years leading up to the first Outback Festival had been drought years. In November 1974, Winton got its own television transmitter, ABWNQ 8. This broadcasts the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Queensland service, based in Brisbane. The tower stands about 20 km north of town. Another Prime Minister visited Winton in 1979, Malcolm Fraser. He used the occasion to make known his government's intention to undertake "an urgent inquiry on how to overcome worsening fuel shortages." In April 1995, Winton marked the centenary of "Waltzing Matilda" with a festival. Prime Minister Paul Keating and Queensland Premier Wayne Goss showed up for the festivities, and among other things, they unveiled a statue of Banjo Paterson. In 1998, the Waltzing Matilda Centre opened. In 1999, a huge Cretaceous sauropod about 95 million years old was unearthed near Winton. It was dubbed "Elliot".

In 2002, a "non‐profit science initiative" named Australian Age of Dinosaurs was established whose aim is to expose Australian dinosaurs at a world class museum. One project sought to contain the Lark Quarry Dinosaur Trackways near Opalton inside a climate controlled building to preserve and display them, a project that has been accomplished. In 2009, three new dinosaur species were given their scientific nomenclature (with nicknames in round brackets). They are Australovenator wintonensis ("Banjo"), Diamantinasaurus matildae ("Matilda") and Wintonotitan wattsi ("Clancy"). At the , Winton had a population of 954. A cultural disaster struck Winton in June 2015 when the Waltzing Matilda Centre burnt down, destroying many artefacts. On the night of 17 June 2015, fire broke out in the Waltzing Matilda Centre, the building that housed town's information centre and a museum housing a collection of historic artifacts. Firefighters arrived within minutes to find the rear of the building engulfed in flames, the teams fought desperately to save the front of the building and any artifacts that hadn't already been destroyed. Despite all efforts, the entire structure was reduced to a smouldering wreck with little evidence of the building ever housing such a unique museum. The fire has been deemed unsuspicious and investigators are currently looking for clues to the cause of the blaze. The building was unoccupied at the time of the fire and there were no casualties. The rebuilt museum reopened in April 2018. In the , the locality of Winton had a population of 875 people. In the , the locality of Winton had a population of 856 people.

Winton lies on the north bank of the Western River, a braided river that often runs dry, made of many small channels, a landform that gives this region, the Channel Country, its name. The Western is joined from the north by Jessamine Creek and Mill's Creek, both braided streams. Mistake Creek, likewise a braided stream, empties into the Western from the south. The Western itself flows westwards, eventually emptying into the Diamantina River at one of only three major confluences on that river. This lies some 60 km downstream. This puts Winton in the Lake Eyre basin. The land in the area is mostly flat grassland, which lends itself rather well to pastoral activity, an industry of some local importance to this day. Winton lies at the junction of the Kennedy Developmental Road and the Landsborough Highway, the two of which run concurrently from Winton's south end as far as another junction a few kilometres west of town.

The Diamantina River's hook shaped upper reaches have drawn scientific attention. In March 2015, Geoscience Australia reported that the river's course at and near its headwaters flows along the edge of a roughly circular crustal anomaly that might well be an impact structure. It is an area, as described by Richard Blewett, a senior official with Geoscience Australia, in diameter, characterized by geomagnetic anomalies, and Winton lies roughly 60 km beyond its eastern edge. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that recent seismic studies undertaken there indicated that long ago an asteroid or comet struck the area releasing energy equivalent to 650 million Hiroshima A bombs (and thus roughly 41 zettajoules).

The area surrounding the town has yielded a number of dinosaur fossils. In 2009, the discoveries near the town of three Early Cretaceous dinosaur genera, Australovenator, Wintonotitan and Diamantinasaurus, were announced. Australovenator wintonensis, the type specimen of that genus, is named after the town. The specimens were unearthed at the "Matilda site" not far northwest of town, on Elderslie Station (site's position roughly ), and at the "Triangle Paddock Site" right nearby. Another sauropod, Savannasaurus, was also found in this area, along with the as of yet unnamed "Elliot". The town also lent its name to the geological formation in which the fossils were found, the Winton Formation.

Winton is situated on the Great Artesian Basin and draws its water for use in the town. This water emerges at and is cooled in ponds in Corfield to before it is circulated through the town. Sulphur gas gives the water an 'eggy' smell. As of 2018, Winton Shire Council is developing a geothermal power plant to replacing the water cooling process with one that converts the released heat into electricity. It is expected to generate 2000 megawatt hours per year.

The main streets in the town of Winton were named after the stations lying in the directions in which the streets were running. For instance, east and west — Elderslie, Vindex, Cork and Dagworth. Those facing the north were called Oondooroo, Manuka, Sesbania and Werna. Three of these stations, Dagworth, Vindex and Oondooroo, figure in the Waltzing Matilda story.

Winton, like most of Central West Queensland, experiences a hot semi arid climate (Köppen: BSh, Trewartha: BShl); with very hot summers with moderate rains; warm to hot springs and autumns with occasional rains; and mild, dry winters. Summer temperatures ranging from while temperatures in the “winter” season range from Temperatures above can be experienced throughout the year, and sweltering temperatures above can be recorded in every month from October to March. Rainfall is concentrated in summer and the yearly average is ; however, variability is like all of central and western Queensland extreme: annual totals above occurred in 1950, 1974 and 2000, whereas less than fell in 1905 and 2002. Extremes have ranged from to .

Winton State School is a government primary and secondary (Prep–12) school for boys and girls at 71 Cork Street In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 90 students with 13 teachers (12 full time equivalent) and 14 non teaching staff (9 full time equivalent). St Patrick's Catholic School is a private primary (Prep 6) school at Oondooroo Street .

Winton has a range of facilities available to the public, including a showground, racecourse, golf, bowls, skate park, and swimming facilities and a public library. The Winton Shire Council Library Service operates a library at 76 Elderslie Street with a High Speed ISDN Internet Connection (powered through the National Broadband Network) to Brisbane. The Winton branch of the Queensland Country Women's Association has its rooms at 47 Vindex Street. St Patrick's Catholic Church is at 51 Cork Street The Festival being one of three chosen from over 90 Queensland organizations for the Community of Year Award. Featured events include the Quilton Australian Dunny Derby. The Outback Century Cycle Challenge is also held over this event period, attracting competitors from all over Australia for their one chance in every two years of mastering the outback course.

Since 2014, The Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival has been held annually in the town. During the festival, a person involved in the Australian film industry is traditionally honoured with a star on Winton's Walk of Fame in Elderslie Street. Since the festival's inception, Roy Billing, Ivan Sen, Margaret Pomeranz, Butch Lenton, Steve Le Marquand and David Gulpilil have all received stars.

Winton's visitor centre is located in the Waltzing Matilda Centre. The town has a range of museums including the heritage listed former Corfield and Fitzmaurice emporium as well as the heritage truck and machinery museum.

Winton is intimately involved in the story of the popular Australian folk song, "Waltzing Matilda", which had its first performance in the North Gregory Hotel in the town. The Waltzing Matilda Centre opened in 1998 and is the first museum dedicated to a song. The song was written by 'Banjo' Paterson whilst holidaying at a local property, Dagworth Station. The music for the song was arranged by Christina Macpherson, the sister of the station manager who was visiting at the same time. In 2012, to remind Australians of the song's significance, Winton organised the inaugural Waltzing Matilda Day to be held on 6 April, the anniversary of its first performance.

The historic Royal Open Air Theatre is one of the few remaining open air picture theatres in Australia.

Arno's wall is a strange mixture of art and architecture. Cemented contents of the wall include rusted lawnmower parts, boat propellers, vintage typewriters and sewing machines and even a couple of complete motorbikes. A photograph of the wall by Gordon Undy is in the National Library of Australia digital collection.

The 2005 film The Proposition was filmed entirely in Winton and the surrounding area. The 2013 film Mystery Road was also filmed in Winton and the surrounding area. The 2015 film Kirrendirri – Lost and Alone is a documentary which interviews descendants of the massacred Aboriginal people. The 2016 film Goldstone used Winton as a part of their film set. The 2019 ABC Series Total Control was filmed partly in and around the Winton area. The third episode of The Amazing Race Australia 5 was filmed in Winton.