page_title: Taroom
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Taroom / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Taroom town hall, 2014
context_page_description: Taroom is a town in the Shire of Banana and locality split between the Shire of Banana and the Western Downs Region in Queensland, Australia. At the 2016 census, Taroom had a population of 869 people.
context_section_description: Prussian explorer Ludwig Leichhardt passed through the district in 1844, carving his initials and date on a coolibah tree that now stands in the centre of town. Leichhardt's carving is no longer visible following an alleged attempt to remove bark growing over the initials that removed the initials as well. Reporting the rich soils in the area, settlers began taking up land in 1845 and by 1850 a town had been established at a popular camping spot near the Dawson River.
  Originally named Bonners Knob the town was renamed Taroom, possibly after the nearby Taroom cattle station, on completion of the first post office in 1856. The name Taroom is said to be an aboriginal Waka word tarum meaning wild lime.
  Situated 40 kilometres (25 mi) west of Taroom is Hornet Bank Station which was the site of the 1857 Hornet Bank massacre, the genocidal reprisals for which led to the Yeeman Indigenous language group and people being wiped out.
  The town was surveyed by Clarendon Stuart in 1860.
  Taroom is the oldest inland town in Queensland after Ipswich.
  Taroom State School opened on 11 April 1871 as a primary school. In 1964, the school had a secondary department added to provide secondary education to Year 10.
  In 1883, Taroom police officer William O'Dwyer was killed after being struck in the head with a tomahawk by a man he was attempting to arrest near Wandoan.  The suspect was immediately shot dead by an accompanying police constable.  O'Dwyer died from his injuries thirty minutes after being struck, and was buried at Wandoan. A plaque was unveiled on 7 September 2012 by Assistant Police Commissioner Paul Wilson on a rock in front of the Taroom Police Station to commemorate O'Dwyer being killed in the line of duty.
  Taroom Aboriginal Mission operated until 1927, when it was closed and its residents moved to Woorabinda, Queensland.
  The Taroom War Memorial commemorates residents of Taroom Shire who served in World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War. It is located at the Ludwig Leichhardt Park in Yaldwyn Street and was dedicated in about 1973.
  The Taroom Town Hall was built in 2004, immediately next door to the shire council chambers. It was intended to serve as a civic and recreational centre for the town and has a main auditorium that seats 300 people as well as a commercial kitchen and bar. The hall was awarded a regional commendation by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 2004.
  The current Taroom Public Library opened in 1976.
  Taroom made national news headlines in December 2014 when a man and two children were found near the town after being missing for eleven days.  The trio, consisting of Steve Van Lonkhuyzen and his two young sons, had departed the Brisbane suburb of Lota on 11 December 2014 for a road journey to Cairns when they became stranded in Expedition National Park north-west of Taroom, after their four-wheel-drive vehicle became bogged.  The Queensland Police Service appealed to the public to help locate the father and his two sons after they were reported missing when they failed to reach Cairns as scheduled on 15 December 2014.  The last known communication from the man was a phone call made from Taroom. A local Taroom grazier eventually located the trio on 21 December 2014 while he was searching the national park looking for them after seeing media reports about their disappearance and realising he had witnessed their vehicle enter the national park several days earlier.  It was reported they had survived by collecting rainwater and eating mouldy bread.  The two boys were admitted to Taroom Hospital as a precautionary measure due to malnutrition.
  On 29 September 2018, Taroom & District Historical Society Inc and Taroom RSL Sub Branch worked together to preserve the 1973 War Memorial by moving it from Leichhardt Park to the Taroom Museum at 17 Kelman Street, Taroom  (on the original site of the Taroom State School 1871-1956).
caption: Taroom town hall, 2014
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