Bohle
Locality north of Townsville that takes its name from the river.
River north of Townsville, rising about 25 kilometres from the coast and flowing into Halifax Bay, named after Henry Bohle, a cattle drover in the Townsville region in the 1860s.
Bohle Plains
Residential suburb of Townsville, west of the Bohle River and north of Hervey Range Road formally named in 1991.
Bohlevale
School in Deeragun, to the north of Bohle Plains built on land gifted by the Burdell family, owners of Bohlevale homestead, in 1912.
Bowen
Basin, an area rich in coal and gas deposits, stretching about 650 km from Collinsville to Emerald and Moura (west of Bundaberg). Its area is put at 60,000 to 75,000 sq km and shaped like an inverted Y with a stem running from Collinsville to Dysart, a corridor that accommodates most of the mines with subsidiary branches south-west to Emerald and south to Moura and Theodore. Rapid expansion of mining in the area saw the establishment of new towns at Moranbah (1970), Dysart (1973), Middlemount (early 1980s), Tieri (1981) and Glenden (1983) and rapid increases in the populations of Blackwater, Emerald and Biloela.
Coastal town midway between Mackay and Townsville, named after the first Governor of Queensland. As the first settlement north of Rockhampton, Bowen became the base for the pastoral settlement of north Queensland as the port transhipped supplies to the new outback stations. By 1865 its European population exceeded 1000 and remained about the same through to the early twentieth century. The population grew gradually through to the 1980s, when the development of the coal port at Abbot Point brought a temporary boom, but the closure of the meatworks at Merinda saw a significant slump in prospects.
Like previously proposed developments the Chalco Alumina Refinery at Abbot Point failed to materialise, but the town gained some notoriety when a vacant block on the Front Brach wasused to represent parts of Darwin in the Baz Luhrmann movie Australia.
Bowen's equable climate proved ideal for growing fruit and vegetables including tomatoes, capsicum, beans, sweet corn, rockmelons, cucumbers and the eponymous mangoes. 2002 production ran to 5250 tonnes of mangoes, and 155,000 tonnes of assorted vegetables, including 80,000 tonnes of tomatoes, 23,000 tonnes of capsicum and chilli, 6500 tonnes of sweet corn, 8250 tonnes of beans and 2000 tonnes of cucumber were grown.
Electorate, originally created by the 1872 Electoral Districts Act, it survived in its original incarnation through a number of redistributions until 1949. The electorate reappeared after the 1959 redistribution, was abolished again in 1971 redistribution. The most recent reformation came in 1986, drawn from portions of Peak Downs, Flinders and Whitsunday electorates. The 1991 redistribution divided its voters among Whitsunday, Mirani, Burdekin, Fitzroy and Charters Towers.
Shire centred on Bowen, formed by merging Wangaratta Shire, which dated back to 1879 and Bowen Town Council in April 1960 and amalgamated with Proserpine Shire to form Whitsunday Regional Council in 2008.