Although they are closer to Brisbane than most other areas in the Pine Rivers Shire, the secluded valleys of the upper reaches of the South Pine River were not settled until the mid 1850s.
Tips
The Pine Settlements
The first change of horses for Cobb and Co. coaches after leaving Brisbane took place at Tom Petrie's Murrumba homestead but, by 1870, increasing demand led to the establishment of a separate hostelry, known as Petrie's accommodation house, which offered a range of services to travellers. The coach stop soon became an important centre in the district with the beginnings of a township springing up around it. In 1872, Edwin Willett was granted a country publican's licence to trade from the hostelry.
The Pine Rivers area was originally part of the Caboolture Divisional Board. Divisional Boards were an early form of local government which was established in Queensland in 1879. On 16 January 1888, the Pine Divisional Board was the first to be gazetted within the boundaries of the large Caboolture area. On 5 April of that year, the area to the east of Sideling Creek was included in the newly proclaimed Redcliffe Divisional Board's area.
Strathpine, originally a farming community undistinguished from the surrounding Bald Hills and South Pine areas, was named by the Railways Department in 1887 when a distinctive name was sought for a railway station which was to be brought into service the following year when the first section of the North Coast Railway opened as far as North Pine (Petrie). The name is derived from a Scottish word 'strath' which means valley; hence the valley of the Pine Rivers. According to a Queensland Railway publication on the nomenclature of railway stations, the name means "between the Pines".
Until the coming of the North Coast Railway in 1888, the locality now known as Lawnton was considered to be part of the North Pine district. Closer settlement of this area dated from 1862 when country farm allotments along the North Pine River were surveyed and first put up for sale. A newspaper report in 1931 on "Lawnton's noted dairy farms" stated that:
Dayboro was first known as Hamilton, having been so named after a farmer, Hugh Hamilton, who was appointed Receiving Officer for mail in 1875. In 1892, it became known as Terrors Creek from the creek on which it is situated. The creek and the adjoining area, which became known as Terrors Paddock, derived their names from a grey Arab stallion, Terah, owned in the 1850s by Captain John Griffin of the Whiteside run.
Closer Settlement
In 1858, James Cash (ca.1803-1870) wrote to the Lands Commissioner requesting that he be permitted to buy the land upon which he had erected his improvements. An area of 86 acres was subsequently surveyed as an extension to the Bald Hills Farm Subdivision. The Surveyor, James Warner, recorded that Cash had two buildings, two stockyards and a large garden on the river flat. By purchasing what became known as Portion 1, Parish of Bunya, in September 1859 at the price of 1 pound per acre, James Cash became the first freehold landholder in the area now defined as the Pine Rivers Shire.
Land Selection
Greensill's slab cottage at Kobble Creek, ca. 1900The selections varied greatly in size but were usually areas of from 20 to 160 acres, depending on the quality of the land. Annual rents, from as little as 2/6 per acre for pastoral land and 3/9 per acre for agricultural land, were paid over a five to ten year period.
The Pine River, first known variously as the Deception, Blind or Eden River, was eventually named after the Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) which was found to be prevalent along its banks. The region's timber industry, which had commenced with the visit of Oxley and Cunningham in 1824, slowly gained impetus during the time of the Moreton Bay convict settlement. During the brief period when the settlement was located at Redcliffe, parties were sent to the Pine Rivers area in search of softwoods.
World War II
From July 1943 until February 1944, 15,000 servicemen attached to the 1st Cavalry Division, United States Army, camped in an extensive area to the west of Strathpine. The Divisional camp, generically referred to as Camp Strathpine, stretched from Kremzow Road, Warner, to the North Pine River at Youngs Crossing, then north-east across Dayboro Road into what is now the Frenchs Forest estate in Petrie.