Kilcoy, Queensland

The Aboriginal people of the Brisbane River Valley and Kilcoy region are the Jinibara People, traditionally a nation of five clans: the Dungidau centred in the Kilcoy region and the junction of the Stanley and Brisbane Rivers; the Dala or Dallumbara clan inhabiting the Conondale Range west to the Brisbane River; the Gurumngar around the southern end of the D’Aguilar Range; the Nalbo along the Maleny-Mapleton escarpment and the Dungibara on the Upper Brisbane River.[5][6]

Duungidjawu (also known as Kabi Kabi, Cabbee, Carbi, Gabi Gabi) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Duungidjawu country. The Duungidjawu language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of Somerset Region and Moreton Bay Region, particularly the towns of Caboolture, Kilcoy, Woodford and Moore.[7]

Kilcoy was the heartland of the Jinibara People and the name comes from a patch of lawyer cane (jini) on Mount Kilcoy;[8] 'bara' means' people' or 'folk'; thus Jinibara are the 'People of the Lawyer cane'. Kilcoy was known as Bumgur, meaning the 'blue cod'.[9]

The Kilcoy region is a rich Aboriginal cultural landscape. Mount Archer was known as Buruja, and also the name of a wetland near Villeneuve that was one of the main camps of the Dungidau clan. Bora rings existed at 'Wellcourt' on Somerset Dam and at Sandy Creek east of Kilcoy, Oaky Creek and Waraba Creek.[10]

The junction of the Brisbane and Stanley Rivers was known as Gunundjin, meaning a 'hollow place', and a sacred place, called Gairnbee Rock, recalled a dreaming story of a girl who went swimming there and was turned by her father, a gundir (clever man) by magic into a rock to save her from a dangerous evil spirit.[11] The Stanley River was also called Gairnbee, meaning the water gum.[12] The Brisbane River was known as Mairwar or Mairrwarrh, meaning 'platypus' in Dungidau.

Kilcoy Post Office, 2015

Sir Evan Mackenzie

The locality was originally called Hopetown after early settler Captain Louis Hope. In 1841, brothers Evan[13] and Colin Mackenzie, from the town of Kilcoy in Scotland, took up land west of Durundur (in the Stanley River valley) and began grazing sheep soon after land was opened to free settlement.[14] They renamed it after their home town.[15] They sold the property to Charles A. Atherton in 1849. Atherton in turn sold it to Captain Hope and John Ramsay in 1854. The partnership broke up ten years later, and Hope became sole owner and built the Kilcoy Station homestead of bricks, made on the property, and red cedar. He stayed on in Kilcoy until 1900.[14] Station managers for Captain Hope were Bryant about 1860, Captain Talbot, 1864 and William Butler from 1871 until the sale, where he purchased the homestead block.[14] Hopetoun Post Office opened on 1 December 1892 (a Kilcoy receiving office had been open from 1889) and was renamed Kilcoy in 1907.[16]

In 1842 on the outskirts of Kilcoy Station owned by MacKenzie, 30–60 aborigines of the Gubbi Gubbi tribe, two Djindubari and some men from the Dalla tribe[17] died from eating flour that settlers had laced with strychnine or arsenic.[18][19]

Up until the early 1990s Mackenzie himself was a prime suspect but recent research suggests that he himself was probably not responsible for the massacre, since he was in Sydney at the time. The Mackenzies were admonished for this mass killing by Attorney-General John Hubert Plunkett (1802–1869), who threatened prosecution if an official complaint was lodged. Though MacKenzie's involvement was never verified, this incident was mentioned in a select committee in 1861 and repeated by W. Coote in 1867. The English overseer disappeared upon Mackenzie's return. Mackenzie organised the conspiracy of silence to protect the Englishman.

Towards the end of the 1800s large properties and Government leases began to be divided up for closer settlement. Blocks capable of supporting a family were eagerly sought after, fenced and cleared. The main source of income for these settlers was dairying. In 1877, 2,240 acres (910 ha) were resumed from the Kilcoy pastoral run and offered for selection on 19 April 1877.[20]

The site of the 'Town of Kilcoy' was surveyed by W. E. Hill by April 1888, and the first land sale was on 6 November that year.[14] The township quickly developed at the junction of Sheep Station and Kilcoy Creeks to service these settlers and their families.[14] On 1 December 1892, a post office was opened at Kilcoy, and named Hopetoun post office, after Louis Hope (the uncle of the first Governor General of Australia, Lord Hopetoun, who was a visitor to Kilcoy Station).[21] The township was referred to unofficially as Hopetoun. In 1908 the post office name was changed to Kilcoy, to avoid incorrect mail distribution to other towns of the same name in Victoria and Western Australia.[14]

By the 1890s the only original lease country left was in the Mt Kilcoy and Sandy Creek districts, part of Durundur Station. This country was not opened for settlement until 1902.[22]

Kilcoy's first Provisional School was opened in 1884 at Sheep Station Creek, some five to six miles north of Kilcoy Homestead, the name changing to Sheep Station Creek Provisional School in 1892 when the Kilcoy School opened its doors in Hope Street in Kilcoy.[22][23] At that time there were still no subdivisions north of William Street as that was part of Kilcoy Station which was sold up in 1907.[24] The first Post Office was built in rented premises in Royston Street in 1892, the official Post Office in Kennedy Street still being some 21 years into the future.[21] Hopetoun Post Office opened on 1 December 1892 (a receiving office had been open from 1889) and was renamed Kilcoy in 1907.[16]

Bullock team hauling timber in the Kilcoy district, ca. 1912

Timber milling operations were established as early as 1877, with Frank Nicholson building at Villeneuve, followed by James Green (1888), Hancock Brothers (1897), George Seeney and William and Stan Kropp in the same vicinity.[14] The turn of the century saw a huge increase in activity as Hancock & Gore timber mill began operation.[24]

Kilcoy District Memorial Hall, 1923

In 1912 the Shire of Kilcoy was formed, and the area became independent from the Caboolture Shire.[21][25]

Kilcoy railway in 1939

The establishment of the railway line in 1913 created a surge in the timber industry with more mills opening near Kilcoy (Bert Woodrow – c. 1916; Thurecht Brothers – c. 1918, George Payne – c. 1919) and at Louisavale (1912), Monsildale (1912) and Yednia (early 1900s). The rural areas within a relatively small radius of Kilcoy township catering for the settlers laboring in the industries of dairy, cattle and timber were flourishing with cultural activity and those early years around the turn of the century witnessed small schools and in some cases thriving villages spring up in West Vale (1887–1910), Villeneuve (1902–1960), Hazeldean (Stanley River, 1898–1973), Gregors Creek (1896–1963), Woolmar (1894–1941), Louisavale (1915–1940), Monsildale (1913–1922 and 1941–1961), Jimna (1923–2006), Yednia (1911–1946), Sheep Station Creek (1884–1942), Somerset at upper Mount Kilcoy (1915–1943), Mount Kilcoy (1909) and Sandy Creek (Winya, 1918–1960).[22]

Members of the Country Women's Association in Kilcoy, 1931

Kilcoy became a prosperous town providing all the services required to maintain all needs of the district. With distance travel still not largely contemplated, nor in most cases desired, social, sporting and community-based clubs and organizations were established.

Somerset Dam during construction, July 1938

Somerset Dam was constructed between 1935 and 1959 with suspension of construction during the Second World War. The dam is situated on the Stanley River approximately 220 kilometres (140 mi) upstream from the mouth of the Brisbane River.

Construction of the Somerset Dam created jobs and in 1953, the Kilcoy Pastoral Company established an abattoir in the town.[26]

One of the most famous Aboriginal people in Queensland's history, Gaiarbau, (known as Willie MacKenzie), was born at Kilcoy in the 1870s. He died in a Salvation Army Home in Brisbane and was buried on 24 June 1968 in Mt Gravatt Cemetery.[27]

In the 1950s he recorded a series of tapes with Dr L.P. Winterbotham of the University of Queensland, that today provides one of the most detailed understandings of Aboriginal culture in southeast Queensland.[11]

This evidence of connection to the region assisted the Jinibara people in being granted Native Title by the Federal Court of Australia in 2012.

In the 1960s, road transport ensured the demise of the railway line (1964) and the old Kilcoy yard was converted many years later into a park known as Yowie Park.[22] Deregulation of the dairy industry has caused a lot of these small farms to become unviable. The total population for the wider area serviced by the town at the 2011 Australian Census was 4,840.[28]

A sand mining operation was proposed for the town in 2011,[29] but the application was withdrawn on 31 October 2012 following strong opposition by the local residents.