Queenstown was founded in early 1853 under the direction of Sir
George Cathcart, who named the settlement, and then fort, after
Queen Victoria. Work on its railway connection to
East London on the coast was begun by the
Cape government of
John Molteno in 1876, and the line was officially opened on 19 May 1880. The town war memorial was designed by Sir
Robert Lorimer in 1922 with its sculpture by
Alice Meredith Williams. The town prospered from its founding up to the worldwide depression of the 1930s, and again thereafter. In the 1960s, the majority of the black population was moved east to the township of
Ezibeleni, as part of the attempt to move African people to so-called
"homelands". The area has in the past had very severe weather problems, luckily, often only affecting the surrounding areas. In 2002, heavy snowfall around Queenstown caused a severe disaster, especially since the area was not funded or ready for such a disaster. Then, in 2004, the surrounding areas of the Eastern Cape were affected by strong winds and heavy rainfall, although Queenstown once again escaped much flooding and some wind damage, power shortages soon followed. Other natural disasters include
droughts and wildfires. In February 2016, the government changed the official name for the town from "Queenstown" to "Komani". ==Education==