Texas ‘gold leaf’: The rise and fall of Australia’s last great tobacco town – ABC News

Dilapidated drying sheds and old photos of sun-damaged farmers smoking hand-rolled cigarettes are almost all that remains of Australia’s long-dead tobacco boom.

In the mid-20th century, tobacco was big business in the Queensland town of Texas, 300 kilometres south-west of Brisbane.

The industry was built by waves of migrants, such as Chinese workers left idle after the gold rush and Italian prisoners of war turned sun-burnt share farmers.

The lure of Texas “gold leaf” tobacco was strong.

Chinese gold hunters

Texas tobacco production began in the 1870s when Chinese men were employed on Texas Station to grow the crop for local use.

“They were employed because they had grown their own tobacco before, so you use somebody who can already grow something instead of reinventing the wheel,” Ms Griffin said.

“A lot of it would’ve been for their own use and other people around, like stockmen who used to like to have a smoke.

“Smoking had become quite fashionable, and they would’ve also sold some of it to manufacturers.”

Much of the region’s tobacco grew in the Dumaresq Valley, beside the Dumaresq River.

Tobacco, being a thirsty plant, required regular irrigation.

Entire tobacco crops were sown, cultivated and harvested by hand with back-breaking work in Queensland’s formidable summer heat.

Ms Griffin said many Chinese tobacco farmers eventually died, and their families moved away from Texas.

The Italian POWs

The 1930s was the high watermark of Australian tobacco when strong domestic demand and government-mandated quotas of local leaf in manufacturing drove up prices.

The promise of good money drew Italian migrants to Texas.

“The Italian immigrants were very important to the area. There were so many small settlements of Italians,” Ms Griffin said.

Around that time, the father of Texas local Lucia De Bortoli, Guerino Canto arrived from Italy to find work and provide for his large family during the Great Depression.

When World War II began, Mr Canto and many of his compatriots were imprisoned for several years.

Once released, he headed to Texas to grow tobacco to earn money to bring the rest of his family to Australia, but it was not easy.

In 1950, at 13 years old, Ms De Bortoli arrived in Texas, and her father sent her straight to the field to pick tobacco.

“It was hard work,” she said.

“When you pick tobacco, the nicotine is still fresh, and it sticks to you, and it’s dark. It’s like chewing gum.”

Ms De Bortoli and her husband, Don De Bortoli, continued to grow tobacco on their family farm until the industry collapsed.

Tobacco industry collapse

The Australian tobacco industry was deregulated in the 1990s and collapsed soon after.

An industry review of the day found tobacco was by far the most subsidised agricultural activity in Australia, receiving 12-times more assistance than the average for all agricultural activities.

The market slowly deregulated, and local leaf quotas on manufacturers and tariffs on cheaper imported tobacco were removed.

Mr De Bortoli said the industry slowly folded as government support dried up.

“It just died out. We sold our quotas to Mareeba just a few years before it died,” he said.

State and federal governments created so-called “exit grants” to help tobacco farmers leave the industry.

“The government didn’t’ want us to grow anymore,” Mr De Bortoli said.

“At the end, in the last two years, they paid me not to grow tobacco.”

Cotton and cattle replaced tobacco crops in the Dumaresq Valley.

Texas’ tobacco history lives on in the memories of those migrant families, and the black-and-white photos and relics held in a tin shed at the local museum.

“We’re healthy and, I don’t think I’d like to live any other place,” Ms De Bortoli said.