Capella
Postcode: 4723
Capella is a small town in Peak Downs Shire, Queensland midway between Emerald and Clermont on the Gregory Highway.
It was founded in the late 1860’s by graziers influenced by the good reports of Ludwig Leichhardt.
Today, it is a service town catering to the large coal-mining interests in the area as well as pastoralists.
Like so many outback settlements, the small, Peak Downs town of Capella began as a coachstop on the trails linking mining and agricultural producers with the coast and developed in rhythm with the dictates of the market.
These days, Capella’s lifeblood are the black soil graziers and pastoralists and the regional coal fields. The pioneering squattocracy was attracted to the down country by explorer Ludwig Leichhardt’s glowing assessment of the agricultural potential of the grasslands he traversed in 1846.
The town takes its name from the reddish, eighth brightest star in the southern sky, while visitors are also attracted to sparklers of another kind on the gem fields just half an hour out of Capella.