Logan City trail

The Logan district was one of the earliest areas of Queensland to be settled outside of Brisbane. Logan is now a modern vibrant city, home to a multicultural population, as it has been since its origins. English, Irish and German settlers arrived in the mid-1860s. The English established themselves from Slacks Creek to Loganlea on the western side of the Logan River. The Irish settled on the eastern side, now known as Waterford. In 1864, a group of Germans initiated a cooperative farming settlement east of Waterford at Bethania. Logan Village dates to 1865 as the head of navigation of the Logan River, when all goods were transported by boat. Its school and teacher’s residence now house a library and small museum.

While cotton was the first commercial crop grown, sugar proved to be more successful and cotton gins were rapidly replaced by sugar mills. A floating distillery, the ‘Walrus’, plied its trade up and down the Logan River and up to Brisbane during the 1870s. Its copper still was reputedly used by Davy and Gooding of the Beenleigh Sugar Plantation to start the Beenleigh Rum Distillery in 1884. The town of Beenleigh evolved around this plantation in the late 1860s.

On the northern bank of the Logan River, the suburb of Carbrook was also established by German settlers in 1868; originally known as Gramzow. The German name was changed during WWI, as was done throughout Queensland at this time. The 1877 school is now used as a community hall. The Lutheran cemetery on Mount Cotton Road also dates to the mid-1870s.

Beenleigh’s original 1875 Anglican Church has been relocated to the Beenleigh Historical Village. West of Beenleigh on the Albert River, St John’s Church at Mundoolun, honours successful graziers John and Ann Collins, whose property stretched into the Scenic Rim district.

A number of factors including the 1890s downturn in sugar prices, led sugar farmers to turn to dairying. It became the most significant local industry, particularly after production began at the Kingston Butter Factory in May 1907. This factory closed in the 1980s, and now houses a small theatre, local museum and craft centre. Nearby, Mayes Cottage house museum provides an insight into the lives of a local farming family. The Kingston Pioneer Cemetery is a place of peaceful contemplation around the graves of the Mayes and the Kingston families and other early settlers.