Toomaroo Pty Ltd was a pastoral company run by the Griffiths family, owners of Toowoomba Foundry, and operated several large south-western Queensland wool producing properties. The business was named after Lake Toomaroo, a salt lake on one of the properties, Dynevor Downs, near Thargomindah, about 900 kilometres west of Toowoomba. A large number of the Foundry’s Southern Cross products such as windmills,engines and generating sets were supplied to the Toomaroo properties over the years.

In the 1950s, Toomaroo Pty Ltd was managed by Arthur Griffiths, a grandson of George Washington Griffiths, the English immigrant who established the Toowoomba Foundry in 1874. Arthur had served in the Army during World War Two and fought in the battle for Tobruk. He transferred to the RAAF in the final days of the War and became a qualified pilot. He owned various small aircraft in the post-War years and flew a Cessna 180 when travelling between Toowoomba and the Foundry’s far-flung sheep properties. 

The early 1950s was a time of prosperity for the wool industry, thanks to t