[1] Lockhart River is a coastal Aboriginal community situated on the eastern coast of the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia.

The population consists mostly of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, whose ancestors were forcibly moved to the area beginning in 1924.

The community is also located approximately 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) inland from Quintell Beach and within the Kutini-Payamu National Park.

The river was named by explorer Robert Logan Jack in January 1880, after a close friend, Hugh Lockhart.

[5] Non-Indigenous people first arrived in 1848, when the explorer Edmund Kennedy set up a base camp near the mouth of the Pascoe River at Weymouth Bay.

[6] Kennedy left eight men at the camp but by the time they were located by the supply ship, only two remained alive, the other six having died from disease and starvation.

Miners in search of tin and gold, along with timber cutters, were in the hills around Gordon Creek and the country inland around the Wenlock River.

[7] The Anglican Church established a mission at Orchid Point near the Lockhart River in 1924, at a location that had been a centre of a sandalwood trade.

[8][9] After the Second World War broke out, the European superintendent went on furlough in 1942,[10] and the Aboriginal people were told to go to several bush camps and fend for themselves.

[14] During World War II, Lockhart River Airport was constructed as a large American bomber base with three airstrips operating.

The US bombers flew to Papua New Guinea and were met by their fighter escorts based at Bamaga and Horn Island further north.

Many thousands of troops, both US and Australian, passed through as part of their jungle training before being shipped to southeast Asia, and many sorties from the base were flown against Japanese forces during the critical Battle of the Coral Sea, May 4–8, 1942.

Portland Roads community, 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of Lockhart River, was the supply port for the war effort with a large jetty.

[citation needed] Iron Range Post Office opened on November 5, 1936, closed in 1942, reopened in 1950, and was renamed Lockhart River in 1978.

At 1143:39 Eastern Standard Time, the aircraft impacted terrain in the Kutini-Payamu National Park on the north-western slope of South Pap, a heavily timbered ridge, approximately 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) north-west of the Lockhart River aerodrome.

A number of smaller communities also exist: Wattle Hills Station, Pascoe River 'Farm', Chili Beach, Packer's Bay and Portland Roads.

Packer's Bay also has a number of open-plan and full residential style houses occupied by people opting out of mainstream society.

[27] The Lockhart River Aboriginal Shire Council operates an Indigenous Knowledge Centre, which includes a library, on Poucheewee Street.