Longreach Stockman's Hall of Fame

In the 1980s, a group of Australians decided that the people who had built the nation's pastoral industry — the drovers, shearers, stockmen and station hands — deserved a national monument. The Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre opened in Longreach, Queensland, in 1988, the year of the nation's bicentenary, designed by architect Philip Cox to resemble a shearing shed from the outside but to feel like a cathedral within.

Longreach was chosen because it sits at the heart of Australia's iconic Channel Country — the Mitchell grass plains that once carried the world's largest cattle drives. The museum tells the story of the Cobb & Co. coaches that linked remote towns, the Aboriginal stockmen who were essential to the industry but received no pay until 1968, and the women who managed vast stations alone while their husbands were away mustering. Nearby is the Qantas Founders Museum — Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services) was founded in Longreach in 1920 and began flying from a paddock outside town.