Alligator Creek meatworks

Alligator Creek Meatworks is an important historical business in Queensland contributing to processing of food for the growing population and processing meet while the meat and cattle industry expanded the economy of the local area and of Australia with the introduction of meat exportation.

[1] The meatworks is no longer in operation, but the photos and historical accounts provide an insight into rural life in early Australia and Queensland.

[7] It continued until 1946 under the management of the Swift Meat Co when it threatened to close because of employee strikes and disputes about leaving work 15 minutes early to catch the train back to the city.

In 1864, a group including Andrew Ball, Mark Reid and two persons of Aboriginal descent set out to find a suitable location for shipping and discovered Alligator Creek for the first time which would later become the site of the meatworks.

[11] Some of the equipment for boiling down was acquired by the North Queensland Meat Export Company for the Alligator Creek meatworks operation.

[10] In 1904 he was listed as being the purchaser of the North Queensland Meat Export and Agency Company's Alligator Creek plant.

[1] The meatworks distribution was important for the economy and was assisted by the government building the Alligator Creek railway station, built in 1915.

[7] In April 1930, the Swift Meat Co. started with a board of 6 later increasing to 12 members operating the Alligator Creek meatworks.

[15] The business continued until 1946 under the management of the Swift Meat Co. when 340 workers threatened to be were laid off because of leaving work early to catch the train which would taken them back to the city.