Cunnamulla War Memorial Fountain

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Cunnamulla War Memorial Fountain is a heritage-listed memorial in John Street, Cunnamulla, Queensland, at a busy five‑way intersection. Built around 1924, it was created to honour Australians who died in the First World War. The fountain remains a town landmark and was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.

The names of the fallen are not on the fountain itself. They were inscribed on an honour board in the Civic Centre and, in 2019, that board was moved to the Cunnamulla library.

Design and construction: In 1920 the Paroo Shire Council decided to erect a war memorial fountain. In 1924 the masonry firm Andrew Lang Petrie of Brisbane offered designs. By 1926 the council and the Diggers’ Racing Club agreed to install the fountain, aiming to have it ready for the Diggers’ Carnival. The design is said to copy a Roman fountain built about 400 years earlier; the Cunnamulla fountain was executed by R.C. Ziegler and Son.

The fountain’s structure: It is a large concrete memorial with a shallow blue trough about 7 metres in diameter and a tall, highly decorated centrepiece with four basins. Gargoyles and winged griffins are part of the ornament, along with shields showing emus and kangaroos. A leaded marble plaque on the north face bears the dedication: “Erected by the citizens of Paroo Shire in memory of those gallant Australians who fell in the Great War 1914-1918.”

Originally there was a captured gun inside the enclosure, but it was removed later. Water was chosen as a memorial element because it symbolizes life and renewal, and fountains were sometimes used as memorials in rural Queensland.

Heritage significance: The fountain reflects how communities memorialised World War I, demonstrating national patriotism and local involvement. It is valued for its aesthetic qualities and as a distinctive town landmark that continues to represent the impact of the war on the community. It is relatively rare as a large war memorial fountain in Queensland.