Here in History With Betty Laver: Tondoon Dam

Gladstone had trouble with water supply from the days of first settlement in 1854 when water was carted from the deep-water hole in Auckland Creek. The second supply was when O’Connell had crew come to Gladstone to build a dam at the bottom of Goondoon Street on Happy Valley Creek. This dam was upgraded by Hay and Day in 1866. The railway Dam was built further along Happy Valley Creek in 1897, and this was to service the railway which had just been completed to Gladstone. This dam lasted less than twenty years before it was necessary to look further afield.  

The next dam was the Toolooa Creek Dam in 1916. In 1914 the town council borrowed money to build a new dam for the town water supply and the site chosen was on Toolooa Creek. The new waterworks was completed in 1917 during WW1, and it was to serve Gladstone until the 1940’s when the Boyne River scheme came into being. The building of this dam claimed the life of Matthew Chews, who was killed by a falling tree while working on the embankment. In 1932 a reservoir was built on Ferris Hill (now Radar Hill) to extend the water network. This dam was inadequate to serve the town’s needs by the 1930’s as Swifts Meatworks alone was using 40,000 gallons a day and the population had increased rapidly with the extension of the meatworks. It took until 1945 for the council to finally be convinced to draw their water from the Boyne River. Tondoon is now the site of the Gladstone Botanical Gardens.