Information

There was a rafting ground at the junction of Woogaroo Creek and the Brisbane River. The Lands Commissioner Stephen Simpson (who administered timber licences) was located here from 1843 to 1854 but made no reference to this rafting ground: perhaps it was established after he left. The Woogaroo/ Goodna Scrubs were a major source of timber for the colony and for decades the river was the most effective means of transporting the logs to the market. At the rafting ground, softwood logs (which are buoyant) were formed into rafts to be floated down to Brisbane, and hardwood timber was loaded onto steam barges at the mouth of Woogaroo Creek. Many logs went to Pettigrew’s sawmill on the riverbank in Brisbane.

The Ipswich-Brisbane Railway (opened 1874-76) ran close to the rafting ground and by the 1880s, and enterprising timbermen were seeking to use Wolston, Darra and Goodna railway stations to transport their timber. Aldine’s ‘History of Queensland 1888’ features a photo of the rafting ground, but likely it was little used by the turn of the century.

Citations

E.S. Hancock, ‘The Queensland timber industry: early history and development’, in Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Vol 9, Issue 1, Brisbane: RHSQ, 1970; Vicki Mynott, ‘Wacol, Wolston, Woogaroo (1823-2014), Vol 1’, Inala Heights: Richlands, Inala and Suburbs History Group Inc., 2014.

Image Citations

The river near Goodna. Aldine’s History of Queensland, 1888, Vol 1, p. 281.

Map References

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