Beaudesert real estate

Mununjali country and the Nindooinbah run

Beaudesert is known in the Yugambeh language as Yilbagan. Mununjali, recorded in several spellings, is one dialect of Yugambeh, and its language area covers land within the Scenic Rim and Beaudesert Shire council areas. The town stands on the Mount Lindesay Highway, some 70 kilometres south of Brisbane, to the west of the Gold Coast.

The Nindooinbah pastoral run dates from 1842; its original homestead went up in 1850. Beaudesert's name comes from a pastoral run name that Edwin Hawkens, also written Hawkins, used in 1842. The Logan River marks much of the locality's western edge, and the decommissioned Nindooinbah Dam lies to the east.

A township and its railway

Beaudesert's provisional school opened on 26 March 1882 and closed on 9 September 1886; it reopened on 13 September 1887 as Beaudesert State School. A provisional school at Upper Beaudesert opened circa 1882; it closed circa 1885. The Beaudesert Hotel dates from 1885. It burned down in 1940, and a replacement followed.

In August 1885, an auction at Stretton's Hotel offered 125 lots in the Beaudesert Township Extension estate. Most were 2 roods each, in streets named Brisbane, Tubber, Gordon, Birman, James, Edward and Alice. The sale notices said the state government had voted funds to extend the railway from Logan Village to Beaudesert.

The railway line from Bethania reached Beaudesert on 16 May 1888. In December 1901, auctioneers offered nine grazing and agricultural lots around the town, ranging from 137 to 607 acres and totalling 2,235 acres. The land was sold after the death of its owner, Ernest White. As more people owned cars after World War II, fewer used the passenger trains, and the service ended in 1961. The Beaudesert abattoir and dairy farmers kept using the freight services until freight ended on 20 May 1996.

Church buildings and the convent school

In July 1888 the foundation log was laid for St Thomas' Anglican church, and Archdeacon Nathaniel Dawes gave an address. A foundation stone for a new church was laid in November 1956 by the Governor of Queensland. Consecration of the second St Thomas' Anglican Church followed on 4 July 1965, and the 1888 church became the church hall.

In February 1889 the foundation stone of a Catholic church in the town was blessed by Robert Dunne, the Roman Catholic Archbishop. The church was named for the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the feast day of 2 February, and was commonly known as St Mary's. It opened on 2 June 1889, built by James Madden of Ipswich, and measured 50 by 28 feet inside with 14-foot ceilings. On 15 September 1907 the second St Mary's opened, and the original church was dismantled and re-assembled at Kerry as St John's Catholic Church.

A Baptist church opened in Beaudesert in 1897, on land bought for that purpose in 1889; the foundation stone went down in April 1897 and the church opened on Wednesday 16 June 1897. The foundation stone for St Mary's Convent School was laid on 14 April 1901, and the school opened on 19 August 1901 with 101 students, run by the Sisters of Mercy.

The convent school's timber building served until 1939, when its condition was becoming dangerous, and a new brick building was blessed and opened on 3 September 1939. On 19 August 2013 that brick building was badly damaged by fire, but its exterior and stained glass windows survived; it was rebuilt and re-opened on 20 February 2015 and is now used for school administration.

Tramway, butter factory and town life

The Beaudesert Shire Tramway ran to Christmas Creek, Lamington and Rathdowney from 1903 until 1944, operated by the Beaudesert Shire. The Logan and Albert Co-operative Butter Factory ran from 1904 until 1987. The town's newspaper, the Beaudesert Times, began in 1908. In 1919 the town's RSL Sub Branch opened on Jane Street.

The war museum was unveiled in September 1921, by the Queensland Governor, Matthew Nathan. In 1927, the Duke and Duchess of York came to Beaudesert. The L & A Hotel opened in 1934. In 1936, a former prime minister was hurt when a plane came down in Wood's Paddock during an emergency landing. Through the nineteenth century and up to the 1980s, the town had a shoe factory, meat works, markets, a hospital and an ambulance service. One family ran a major department store; another had an electrical business and a car sales and servicing operation.

From 1954 to 1962 Beaudesert State School also ran a secondary school program; it ceased when a separate Beaudesert State High School opened in January 1963. BoysTown, a controversial child-welfare organisation, ran in Beaudesert from 1961 until 2001. The abuse recorded at that one institution is described as the largest such case in Australia's history. McAuley College opened in January 2017 with 36 Year 7 students, and its official opening followed on 17 November 2017. In 1999 the Biddaddaba History Group gathered the area's history into a book available from libraries, covering the years from the earliest white settlement up to 1990.

Heritage places and the museum

The Milbanks Pioneer Cottage is kept at the Beaudesert Historical Museum, in the town. Patrick Milbanks built the cottage in 1875 on his Kerry property, using local hand-hewn timbers, slats and a shingle roof, and it holds a four-poster bed, a large cedar sideboard and articles showing how the early settlers lived.

A number of places in the town are heritage-listed. They include the Beaudesert Showgrounds on Albert Street and St Thomas' Anglican Church at 7 to 9 Albert Street; the Beaudesert Racecourse and Grandstand at 3180 Beaudesert-Boonah Road; the Beaudesert Masonic Centre at 33 Brisbane Street; the Beaudesert Hotel at 80 Brisbane Street; the Scenic Rim Regional Council Chambers at 82 and 84 Brisbane Street; St Mary's Catholic Church on Bromelton Street; and the Beaudesert War Memorial on William Street.