Pioneers of Maleny & DistrictPrint Page

The machinery used to haul logs commemorates the pioneers of Maleny and District.

Europeans arrived in Maleny in the early 1840s. An escaped convict, James Doris, claims to be the first arrival in this area. He was quickly followed by the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt in 1843. As settlers came in to claim land at Bald Knob, Conondale, Baroon Pocket and Maleny so too was the Range opened up as a thoroughfare between Brisbane and the goldfields of Gympie further north. 

When Queensland achieved independence from New South Wales in 1859, the new Queensland government rescinded the Bunya Proclamation resulting in the opening up of the whole area to white settlement. The aboriginals were then progressively pushed off their traditional lands. Around 1871 the first white settlers arrived in the Obi Obi area and began to remove the Red Cedar trees growing there. 

The first industry in the area was that of timber felling in the 1870s. Land clearing gave way initially to wooden box manufacturing and then to dairy farming and the introduction of the Maleny Butter factory in 1903. Citrus growing was common in the Montville area. 
 

Location

Details

Dedication