Yeppoon
Located 36 kilometres northeast of Rockhampton on the shores of Keppel Bay in Darumbal country, the coastal locality of Yeppoon is the Livingstone Shire's administrative and economic centre. The name is thought to stem from a Darumbal word describing a place where waters join, possibly referring to the intersectionof Ross Creek and Yeppoon inlet.
After the Ross family took up much of the coastal country around Yeppoon in the early 1860s, residents of landlocked Rockhampton looked to the nearby coast for relief from the heat. Emu Park and Spring Head (a natural spring) were proclaimed the town of Bald Hills in 1868, surveyed in 1872 and subsequently renamed Yeppoon.
Initially, progress was slow. By 1882 the township had a handful of holiday cottages and a hotel. A rail connection to Rockhampton had to wait until 1909 — and though the township gained some benefit from mining activity at Cawarral and Mount Chalmers, the local economy remained reliant on farming, fruit-growing and grazing. Unseasonal rain and lack of financial backing sank an attempt to produce sugar in the area. Still, pineapples, mangoes, and other tropical fruit became the mainstay of the local economy until the rail connection turned the township into a destination for daytrippers, a dormitory for miners and farm workers and a holiday resort.
