Category: Queensland State Archives’ Photostream About Fortitude Valley

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The Opening Ceremony of the 1982 Commonwealth Games was held on 30 September 1982 at the QEII Stadium in Brisbane. The final runner in the Queen’s Baton Relay was Raelene Boyle, who handed the baton to the Duke of Edinburgh. The Duke read out the message which Elizabeth II had sent in the Queen’s Baton, officially opening the Games (the Duke opened the Games because the Queen was unable to arrive in Australia in time to attend the Opening Ceremony).

Because the Opening Ceremony was held during daylight hours, there were no fireworks to accompany the ceremony. However, both doves and colourful balloons of red, white and blue, were released. There were also supposed to be parachute jumpers, with parachutes of red, white and blue, taking park during the display at the opening of the ceremony, with the parachute jumpers landing within the stylised map of

See Full Post >>

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Sports Centre (QEII Stadium), currently called the Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre, is a major multi-purpose sporting facility on the south side of Brisbane.

The facility opened in 1975 and was officially named Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Sports Centre by the Queen in 1977 to mark her Silver Jubilee. It was constructed in close proximity to both the Queen Elizbeth II Jubilee Hospital and Griffith University campus, which provided athlete accommodation.

The original roofed stadium was intended to be the only permanent seating facility. The remainder of the stadium seating was built as “temporary” seating and was intended to be removed after the Commonwealth Games had finished. Public opinion resulted in the unroofed temporary seating being retained as permanent.

Description source:
Wikipedia

View the original image at the Queensland State Archives:
Digital Image ID 5694

See Full Post >>

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The women’s 4 x 100 metres relay event at the 1982 Commonwealth Games was held on 9 October at the QE II Stadium in Brisbane.

The gold went to Wendy Hoyte, Kathy Smallwood, Beverley Callender, and Sonia Lannaman from England. The silver went to the Canadian team, and the team from Jamaica won the bronze.

The Australian team narrowly missed out on a medal by less than second.

Description source:
Wikipedia

View the original image at the Queensland State Archives:
Digital Image ID 5706

See Full Post >>

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The weightlifting events at the 1982 Commonwealth Games were held over the first two days of the Games.

Australia won the most number of medals in this sport, totalling 9 medals across all bodyweight categories. Australia finished with 3 golds, 4 silvers and 2 bronze medals.

Description source:
Wikipedia

View the original image at the Queensland State Archives:
Digital Image ID 5705

See Full Post >>

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The opening ceremony was held during the afternoon of a fine and sunny, but extremely windy and somewhat cool, afternoon. The starting of the Opening Ceremony was signalled with a kookaburra’s call, followed by the traditional cry of “cooee”. Already on the field were two Commonwealth Games logos.

After the announcement welcoming the audience to the opening ceremony, thousands of high school students dressed in red, white, or blue came running onto the field. Some of the children carried fabric placards while others picked up coloured boards once they were on the field.

While the Opening Prelude/Commonwealth Games song was performed by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Philharmonia Choir, the children formed the Australian flag.

Description source:
Wikipedia

View the original image at the Queensland State Archives:
Digital Image ID 5700

See Full Post >>

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Longreach, a rural town, is 620 km west of Rockhampton at the junction of the Capricorn and Landsborough Highways. The Longreach district was explored by the New South Wales Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell (1846) and by Edmund Kennedy (1847). The pastoralist-explorer William Landsborough reported favourably on the district’s pastoral prospects, and in 1863 the first pastoral lease was taken up by the vast Bowen Downs station.

Considerable optimism surrounded the new settlement: town lots were auctioned and sold briskly, and by 1890 there were three hotels, several stores and tradespeople, a progress association and a police station. The opening of the railway line in 1892 spurred further development and thrust Longreach into the industrial upheaval of the age.

Apart from Longreach’s role as a railhead and district centre, it also became the centre of an area subdivided for closer-settlement farms during the 1890s. Many blocks were too

See Full Post >>

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Allora is a town a locality in south-eastern Queensland on the Darling Downs. The region surrounding this small farming community was first explored by Europeans in the 1840s; the town was surveyed in 1859. Its name is believed to derive from an Aboriginal word “gnarrallah”, meaning waterhole or swampy place.

Following European settlement, the history of the area is entwined with two famous pastoral homesteads in the vicinity of Allora: Glengallan and Talgai. Both properties ran sheep. From the 1870s, red cedar, pine and beech logged from the Goomburra valley were milled at Allora.

Description source:
Wikipedia

View the original image at Queensland State Archives:
Digital Image ID 2334

See Full Post >>

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

For the purposes of building Somerset Dam, a small township was established at the construction site. The township boasted a hospital, school, police station and even tennis courts. A ‘swimming pool’ was located downstream in the river. The workshops, storage sheds and crushing plant were located upstream. The stone quarry, used for dam building, was at the top of the hill.

By 1937, 126 workers’ cottages were constructed. In a letter to the Brisbane Courier in 1935, H.P. Somerset explained that his name’s association with the dam and township was not in relation to his efforts to warn Brisbane back in 1893 about the flood risk, rather it was a suggestion of the site after writing to the Water Board in 1906. Somerset was flatteringly described as an ‘engineer’ for noticing the rock formation as well as its suitability for dam construction.

Description source:
Queensland Historical Atlas

View the

See Full Post >>

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Boonah is both a town and a locality of the Scenic Rim Region in south-eastern Queensland. The history of Boonah township is connected to the nearby settlement of Dugandan which was named after a pastoral run of the same name that was taken up in August 1844 by Macquarie McDonald and his brother Campbell Livingston McDonald.

Dugandan was one of the earliest pastoral holdings in Queensland. In its early years the area was stocked with sheep but the region was discovered to be well suited for cattle and over time became renowned for the quality of its beef and dairy herds.

Variously known as Dugandan Scrub and Blumbergville, Boonah was also positioned within the boundaries of the early Dungandan property. Due to the scattered distribution of European settlers, the close proximity of the two settlements that would eventually become the townships of Dugandan and Boonak and the

See Full Post >>

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Dalby is a town and locality in the Darling Downs region of Queensland. It is at the centre of Australia’s richest grain and cotton growing areas. Dalby was founded in the early 1840s at a place known locally as “The Crossing” on Myall Creek, a tributary of the Condamine River. The first settler was Henry Dennis, who explored the region and chose land for himself and others in the locality.

A small settlement was founded to assist travellers heading north to nearby Jimbour Station. The explorer Ludwig Leichhardt visited the area in 1844, on his way to Port Essington. In February 1853, the New South Wales government sent the Deputy Surveyor General Captain Samuel Perry to the area to survey a township.

In August of the following year, Mr Charles Douglas Eastaughffe arrived with a document under the Seal of the NSW Government officially proclaiming ‘Dalby’

See Full Post >>