Baffle Creek, Queensland


Baffle Creek is a locality in the Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia. The neighbourhood of Wartburg is within the locality.

History

The area on Baffle Creek was first settled in 1908 by Prussian and German immigrants who were recruited by Rev. Niemeyer of the Apostolic Church of Queensland in Hatton Vale near Ipswich. The government land orders they had expected to receive were not available, so they had to wait for six months living on a hill that they called Wartburg meaning waiting place.
In 1911, a sugar mill was built by Albert Kleinschmidt. The mill produced brown sugar which was taken elsewhere for further refining. The mill was closed in 1919 as it was not a successful venture.
Wartburg State School opened on 11 August 1913.
In 1921, a shop storeroom off the Coast Road was remodelled to become St Paul's Lutheran Church. The church bell was installed in 1923. The church was enlarged and the bell tower was remodelled in 1947.
In the 2011 census, the population of Baffle Creek was too low to separately report and was aggregated with the neighbouring locality of Deepwater which had a reported population of 548 people.
On 26 November 2018, the Queensland Government ordered the evacuation of Baffle Creek, Deepwater and Rules Beach due to a "dangerous and unpredictable" bushfire wide and covering with flames of high during an extreme heatwave.

Heritage listings

Baffle Creek has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
Wartburg State School is a government co-educational primary school at 585 Coast Road, Baffle Creek. In 2013, the school had 55 students and 4 teachers.