Kingaroy Butter Factory facts for kids

The Kingaroy Butter Factory is an old building in Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia. It used to be a busy factory where butter was made! Built in 1926 by Waugh and Josephson, it's now a special heritage site. This means it's an important part of Queensland's history. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 9 November 2012.

A Look Back: The Butter Factory's Story

The Kingaroy Butter Factory in 1929

The Kingaroy Butter Factory is a large timber building on William Street in Kingaroy. It was built in 1926 by Waugh and Josephson. This new factory replaced an older one from 1907. Both factories were part of the Maryborough Co-operative Dairy Company.

How Dairying Grew in Queensland

In the late 1800s, dairy farming became very important in Queensland. Several things helped it grow.

• The government made more land available for farming.
• New machines like mechanical cream separators appeared in the 1880s.
• The Babcock test helped farmers measure cream in milk accurately.
• A law in 1893 offered government loans for building butter and cheese factories.
• The Department of Agriculture showed farmers new techniques with a "Travelling Dairy."
• Farmers also started growing special grasses like paspalum and Rhodes grass. This helped cows produce more milk, even in winter.

Getting Butter to Market

Good transport was key for dairy products. The railway network in Queensland grew, making it easier to move butter and cheese. Factories were often built close to railway lines. In 1895, Queensland sent its first butter shipment to Britain. From 1903, the government helped pay for ships to the United Kingdom. This made it easier to export butter.

Kingaroy's Dairy Boom

The railway reached Kingaroy in 1904. This helped the town grow and boosted dairy farming in the South Burnett. Within two years, the Kingaroy railway station was sending 10 tonnes of cream each week to Maryborough. Some farmers also sent cream to Nanango.

By the early 1900s, many dairy factories were run by "co-operatives." These were groups of local farmers who worked together to own the factories. The Maryborough Co-operative Dairy Company (MCDC) started making butter in 1901. In 1905, Kingaroy farmers asked the MCDC to build a factory in their town. The company agreed in 1906. A local landowner, Tom Reen, even donated land for the factory. By March 1907, the first Kingaroy factory was making butter.

A Bigger, Better Factory

The Kingaroy Butter Factory quickly became very important to the MCDC. The South Burnett area was perfect for dairy farming. By 1913, Kingaroy produced almost twice as much butter as Maryborough. It was also much more than the factory in Biggenden. The MCDC also opened factories in Mundubbera (1916) and Wondai (1931). Kingaroy was always the biggest producer among the MCDC's factories. By 1929, the Wide Bay area (including South Burnett) was Queensland's second-biggest milk producer.

In 1925, the MCDC decided to build a new, modern factory in Kingaroy. This new building would cost a lot of money. The local farmers were not happy because they were not asked about this big decision. However, the company said the new factory would make more butter and help the farmers. The new building went ahead.

The new factory was built by Waugh and Josephson from Brisbane. It cost much more than planned, about £47,000. The factory officially opened on 7 October 1926. William Forgan Smith, who was the Minister for Agriculture, came to open it. Many people attended the opening.

How Butter Was Made

Building the new Kingaroy factory was part of a big change for butter makers. By the late 1920s, most Queensland butter factories were new or updated. They used brick and concrete instead of timber. Factories needed more churns to make butter because the process now needed lower temperatures. They also focused on making high-quality butter. This meant stricter checks and using processes like pasteurisation. More trained staff worked in the factories.

Making butter usually followed these steps:

• Cream cans arrived at a loading dock and were weighed.
• The cream was tested to see its quality.
• The cream was poured into large vats, and the cans were cleaned and returned.
• The cream was then pasteurised (heated to kill germs).
• After cooling, it went into storage vats.
• Finally, it was sent to the churns to become butter.
• The butter was then refrigerated, packed into boxes, and sent by rail to markets.

Factories also needed to make ice to keep the butter cold. At Kingaroy, this happened in a small timber building next to the main factory. They also sold ice to other businesses and homes.

Peak Production and Decline

After the new factory opened, butter production grew a lot. From 1926-1927, they made 50 tonnes of butter per week. By 1928-1929, this jumped to 98 tonnes per week. In 1929-1930, the factory reached its highest weekly production ever for Queensland. By 1931, Kingaroy was Queensland's biggest butter factory. Nearly 1000 farmers sold their cream to it. In the 1930s, the factory won many awards for its butter quality.

Dairying was Kingaroy Shire's main industry in the 1930s. Payments to farmers grew from £5,723 in the first year to £157,785 by 1934. The dairy industry grew hugely in Queensland between 1927 and 1937. By the late 1930s, about one in eight Queenslanders lived on dairy farms.

During World War II, many butter factories, including Kingaroy, also made cheese. Kingaroy made cheese from 1941 or 1942 until 1946. They built an extra section at the back of the factory for cheese making. After the war, this area was used to make buttermilk powder.

By 1950, the South Burnett had 130,000 dairy cows. The Kingaroy Butter Factory kept making about 75 tonnes of butter per week until the early 1950s. They bought new machines and updated equipment. However, demand and prices for butter started to fall. This led to a decline in Queensland's dairy industry. Many smaller farmers left the industry. The number of cream suppliers in Kingaroy Shire dropped from 265 in 1965 to 155 in 1969.

In the late 1960s, butter factories in the Burnett region started to close. The Proston Butter Factory closed in 1967. The MCDC closed its factories in Wondai and Biggenden in 1969. By 1976, there were fewer than 400 dairy farmers in the South Burnett.

In May 1977, it was announced that both the Nanango and Kingaroy butter factories would close. All cream would go to Murgon instead. With fewer farmers and rising costs, the factories could not stay open. When the Kingaroy Butter Factory closed, it had only 38 suppliers. It was making only 1.5 tonnes of butter per week, a big change from its busy past.

After the Factory Closed

After closing, the factory was used as a milk collection point for a while. In 1989, it was sold to Suncoast Milk. Later, part of the building was rented out to a cabinet maker. From 1986, a company called Proteco started leasing the front of the building. Proteco makes cold-pressed oils. They bought the property in 1995.

From 2002 to 2009, cheese making returned to the site. Kingaroy Cheese used part of the main building. This business later moved to Brisbane. Now, a peanut roasting company uses the space. The site is not open to the public. As of 2014, Proteco Oils owns the entire site. They use the old Manager's Building for their offices and to sell their oils.

What the Factory Looks Like

Workers inside the churn room of the Kingaroy Butter Factory in 1938

The old Kingaroy Butter Factory is at the northern end of William Street. It is near the old railway line. The complex includes the main butter factory building, a cheese factory from the 1940s, an ice works shed, an old office, and other smaller buildings.

An old engine stands near the front gate. There is also a car park. Roads run through the complex.

The most important buildings are the Main butter factory shed, the 1940s cheese factory (east and west sheds), the ice works shed, and the old office. Let's look at them in more detail.

Main Butter Factory Shed

This is the main building. It is a large rectangular building made of timber with a concrete floor. The timber frame sits on a low concrete base. The roof is hidden behind a decorative top edge. The roof itself has a "sawtooth" shape, with windows facing south. These windows let in light. Another smaller roof section with windows sits over the middle of the shed.

The south, east, and west sides of the building have tall, flat columns called pilasters. These mark out sections of the building. There are also smaller pilasters that used to mark the loading dock openings. There are three loading dock openings on the west side, five on the south, and six on the east. A concrete ledge runs around the bottom part of the building. Eleven large, original timber doors are still there. These doors allowed access to the loading docks.

The south side has four sets of timber windows. The west side has several openings, including windows for the office area upstairs. The east side has many hatch openings where goods were received or sent out. Some of these are now covered. The north side is plain, covered with timber boards and metal sheeting.

Inside, the main building still has many of its original areas. These include rooms for engines, machinery, testing, chilling, cold storage, salt, and packing. There is also a cream platform, a churn room, a main room, and the loading docks. An office area is located on a mezzanine (a partial floor) above.

The walls inside are usually covered with timber boards or fibre cement sheets. The roof is supported by timber trusses and posts.

The southern part of the building has the receiving and despatch docks. These concrete platforms are about 700mm higher than the main room floor. They were used for loading and unloading goods from trains and vehicles. The cream platform is above the chill and cold storage rooms. The main room now holds machinery for the current oil pressing business. The old chill, cold storage, salt, and packing rooms still have their original features like hatches, doors, and concrete drains.

The office mezzanine is made of timber and has timber walls. The ceiling here is covered with fibre cement sheets. It has special screens for ventilation.

The northern part of the building used to hold engines and machinery. It has exposed roof timbers and unpainted timber walls. Some areas have new insulation panels and concrete floors. You can still see marks on the floors from old machinery.

1940s Cheese Factory

The 1940s cheese factory is at the northern end of the site. It has two sheds, both covered with fibre cement sheets and gabled roofs. The west shed has "The Cheese Factory 1941-1946" painted on its south side. Both sheds have concrete floors. The west shed has an elevated concrete loading dock. Windows and sliding doors are on different sides. Inside, you can see the painted timber roof trusses. The walls are partly lined with fibre cement sheets. A narrow band of wire mesh runs along the upper walls. A strong timber door connects the two sheds.

The east shed is smaller. Part of it has a concrete floor, and the rest is on low timber stumps. The walls are filled with sawdust for insulation. This shed has small square windows and a low hatch on the east side. It has a timber floor and unpainted pine walls. A concrete drain runs along the east side.

Ice Works Shed

This small rectangular building is in the middle of the site. It has a concrete base, timber walls, and a gabled roof. It has a timber door and windows on the west side. There are doorways on the east and south sides. The shed is next to the new cheese making facility. Inside, there is a concrete tank and an elevated concrete dock. Equipment for making ice blocks is still there.

Former Office

This is a small, square timber building on low timber stumps. It has timber walls and a tiled roof. It has a front porch entrance and timber window hoods. It stands to the south of the complex.

Why It's a Heritage Site

The Kingaroy Butter Factory was added to the Queensland Heritage Register because it meets important criteria:

It shows how Queensland's history developed. The Kingaroy Butter Factory (built 1926) shows how the dairy industry grew in the Wide Bay-Burnett region. This area was very important for dairy production in the 1900s. The Kingaroy factory was one of Queensland's biggest and most awarded butter makers during the dairy boom years. It also shows how butter factories were updated in the 1920s and 1930s. This was when cream production grew fast, and new ways of making butter were needed. The cheese making section (built 1941) shows how cheese production increased in Queensland during World War II.

It shows the main features of this type of place. The Kingaroy Butter Factory complex shows what a butter factory was like. This was a very important type of industry in Queensland. The factory is next to a railway line, which used to have a special track for loading products. Inside the main building, you can still see the loading dock, storage platform, testing, churn, cold storage, and packing areas. There is also the original office area and space for the factory's machinery. Other buildings like the cheese section (1941), the office (around 1950), and the ice making shed show other activities linked to making butter on the site.