Port Curtis Dairy
| Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory | |
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_(2009).jpg)
Former Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory, 2009
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| Location | 6 Short Street, Gladstone, Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Coordinates | 23°50′58″S 151°15′58″E / 23.8494°S 151.2662°ECoordinates: 23°50′58″S 151°15′58″E / 23.8494°S 151.2662°E |
| Design period | 1919 - 1930s (interwar period) |
| Built | 1929 - 1949 |
| Official name: Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory (former), PCD Factory, Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd Factory | |
| Type | state heritage (built) |
| Designated | 30 March 2001 |
| Reference no. | 601334 |
| Significant period | 1929-1949 (fabric) 1906-1980 (historical) |
| Significant components | railway siding, factory building, store/s / storeroom / storehouse, waterhole, cold room/cold store, office/administration building, shed/s |
 Location of Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory in Queensland
Location of Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory in Queensland
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Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory is a heritage-listed former factory at 6 Short Street, Gladstone, Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1929 to 1949. It is also known as PCD Factory and Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd Factory. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 30 March 2001.
The Port Curtis Dairy Company Ltd (the PCD) was formed at Gladstone in 1904, with its first timber factory buildings erected at Gladstone in 1906. By the 1920s, the PCD was one of the largest co-operative dairy companies in Queensland. The activities of the PCD at Gladstone and in surrounding districts stimulated the expansion of commercial dairying in Central Queensland. State wide, dairying was an important economic activity for the first half of the 20th century, and a mainstay for farming communities during the economic depression of the early 1930s. Surviving elements of the Gladstone factory site include the 1929-1930 factory building, an early factory office building, several cold stores, a c. 1938 single-storeyed office building with two- storeyed extensions erected 1948-1950, a 1938 re-tinning shed, an ice shed and store room erected during the Second World War, and sections of a 1914 railway siding and 1923 siding extension.
From the late 1880s, the Queensland government promoted the establishment of dairying in Queensland as a commercial, rather than subsistence, activity. The development of dairying as a staple industry was considered a means of relieving selector poverty and debt, and as encouragement to closer settlement of the land. The Meat and Dairy Produce Act 1893 was introduced to offer subsidies to dairy farmers and a tax on cattle, the latter funding the establishment of creameries, cheese and butter factories throughout Queensland. In 1895, Queensland produced its first butter surplus.
The real catalyst for the establishment of commercial dairying proved to be the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act 1894, under which valuable agricultural land long freeholded by pastoralists was repurchased by the government, then offered as selections (mostly on perpetual lease) to agriculturalists. By the late 19th century, pastoralists could no longer afford to maintain huge freeholds, and were keen to relinquish land through repurchase. In the Gladstone district, the 1894 Act led to the opening of the Boyne Valley to selection and closer settlement, and this, combined with the provisions of the Meat and Dairy Produce Act 1893, ultimately led to the establishment of a meatworks (1896) and a butter factory (1906) at Gladstone. The Closer Settlement Act 1906 with its provisions for repurchase and on-selling to agriculturalists as settlement farm leases, led to a dairying boom in the Mount Larcom and Yarwun districts behind Gladstone. The Queensland government further supported agriculturalists with its establishment in 1901 of the Queensland Agricultural Bank, aimed at increasing the flow of credit to selectors, further stimulating the dairying industry.
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