Coorparoo

Coorparoo is a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south-east of the CBD.

Coorparoo is a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south-east of the CBD. It borders Camp Hill, Holland Park, Stones Corner, Greenslopes, East Brisbane and Norman Park.

The Coorparoo Clan lived south of the Brisbane River and generally camped along creeks. Their name comes from Kulpurum, which was the word for Norman Creek or a tributary of it. They continued to occupy watercourse campsites after white settlement, but other clans from the region began to move into South Brisbane.

In 1846, there were reports of Aborigines raiding produce along Norman Creek. In 1853, there was a fight between Ningy Ningy, Bribie Island, Amity Point, and Logan peoples at Norman Creek. A visitor in 1855 reported many camps and fishing spots between Stones Corner and the mouth of Norman Creek. In 1959, an eighty-year-old woman told of frequent corroborees on the banks of the creek in Norman Park. Corroborees were also held at a little creek that crossed Norfolk Street.

On 17 June 1856, ten farms were sold from the Parish of Bulimba near Stones Corner. Investors bought all but two of them. The next year James Warner surveyed land on the other side of the road for a second land auction.

Samuel Stevens donated two acres of his property near the junction of Cavendish and Old Cleveland Roads for use of a school. He declined the offer of naming the area "Steven's Town".

In 1876, the Coorparoo State School was opened and Frederick Robinson began offering public transport in a wagonette from Coorparoo Junction to Victoria Bridge. The 1880s land boom was a spur to profit from land. John Black was the first to subdivide land in the area in 1882 and later a variety of subdivisions were offered to the public. The construction of the bridge at Stanley Street (1886) and the development of the Stanley Bridge Estate made the area more attractive to purchasers. In 1887, the tramway was extended to Buranda, putting the western end of Coorparoo close to tram travel.

On Saturday 9 August 1884, auctioneers Simon Fraser & Son offered for sale 222 suburban allotments ranging from 32 to 48 perches (810 to 1,210 m2) in the "Wecker Estate", the property of Frederick Wecker. Although the auction was well attended, only 21 allotments were sold on the day.In February 1886, the "Langlands Estate, East Brisbane" was advertised to be auctioned by Arthur Martin & Co. The advertisement describes 568 allotments commencing a few yards beyond the junction of the Cleveland and Logan Roads, with extensive frontage to the Cleveland Road. A map advertising the auction shows the Nicklin residence on the estate.Coorparoo had been part of the Bulimba Divisional Board since 1879. However, in 1888, as a result of dissatisfaction with this situation, a petition was taken resulting in the creation of Shire of Coorparoo. A bridge was built at Burnetts Swamp (Stones Corner) and important road improvements took place. Development was taking off. In 1889, there were 2,500 people in the shire.

Coorparoo Wesleyan Methodist Church opened on Sunday 13 June 1886. The current church building opened on 18 April 1959, with the former church being disassembled to provide material for a new church at Carina. With the amalgamation of the Methodist Church into the Uniting Church of Australia in 1977, it became the Coorparoo Uniting Church. Recently it has joined with the Norman Park Uniting Church under the new name of Faith Works Uniting Community.On 22 December 1888, "St Leonard's Estate" was advertised for auction by R. J. Cottell. A map advertising the auction shows the estate as adjoining the "Langlands Estate" and close to the Coorparoo railway station. A newspaper advertisement of the day notes that "St Leonard's Estate" can be reached "in a very few weeks by the train".In May 1889, on what is now known as Carina, 275 subdivided allotments of "Stanley Street Extended Estate" were advertised to be auctioned by James R. Dickson & Company. A map advertising the auction mentions 'free waggonettes from the Mart'.On 7 November 1891, auctioneers T. Howling & Co offered for sale 27 suburban lots in the "Wendouree Estate" bounded by Old Cleveland Road to the north and Wecker Street (now Kirkland Avenue) to the east. It is unclear if any blocks were sold at the time as on 6 February 1913 Roman Catholic Archbishop James Duhig purchased this same land as a 3-acre (1.2 ha) site and it is now occupied by St James' Catholic Church and School.The floods of 1889 and 1893 hit the low-lying areas of Coorparoo. The flooding combined with the 1890s depression slowed development in the area. In 1900, there were actually fewer houses than there had been ten years earlier. The settlement was dense from Stones Corner to Kirkland Avenue (originally named Wecker Street but it was changed in 1914 in the wake of anti-German sentiment), but further out it was mainly bush with a few isolated farms and houses. The only major industry was the brickworks of Abraham James at St Leonards Street, which employed eighty men in the 1880s.

After World War I, land prices increased as property sales boomed. Coorparoo did not really begin to expand again until the tram service was extended to Stones Corner in 1902 and Coorparoo Junction in 1915. The number of houses increased from 613 in 1911 to 1,467 ten years later.

"The Gem of Coorparoo" estate was advertised for auction by Cameron Bros in March 1922. A map of the estate shows 51 allotments in the area near the convent, now Villanova College, including St Leonard's Street, Lackey Avenue, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Avenues, Edmond Street and Diamond Avenue (now Barnes Avenue). The map also shows the Coorparoo railway station and the tramline on Old Cleveland Road.

Presbyterian services in Coorparoo commenced with Sunday school and Sunday evening services held in the Shire Hall on Cavendish Road, organised as an outreach of St John's Presbyterian Church in Annerley. Land in Emlyn Street was purchased for £550 and a hall erected at a cost of £1500, opening in July 1928. In September 1931 Coorparoo Presbyterian Church engaged its first minister Reverend Andrew Cuthbertson Kennedy.Cooparoo Cricket Club's (CCC) history can be traced back to the 1940s with the current club starting in 1980.St Anne's Anglican Church opened circa 1958 in the Upper Cavendish Road area. It closed circa 1980s.Xavier Special School opened on 24 August 1970. In 2002, it merged with Camp Hill State High School and Whites Hill State School (both in Camp Hill) to form Whites Hill State College (in Camp Hill). Xavier Special School became the Xavier Special Education Unit within the college.Metropolitan Districts Netball Association was established in 1974 at Downey Park in Windsor, relocating to Wembley Park in Cooparoo in 1976. Its Coorparoo facilities were flooded in the 2011 Brisbane floods.In 2009, the Myer Department store building was compulsorily resumed for Eastern Busway and bus station by the Queensland Government. The Coorparoo station was going to be built on the Myer building site. In 2015, the old Myer Department store building on the corner of Old Cleveland Road and Cavendish Road was demolished. In its place are 3 residential towers with commercial development on the lower floors. The development, known as Coorparoo Square opened in 2017 and features a 10 screen Dendy cinema, Aldi Supermarket and speciality retailers and coffee shops.The Coorparoo bus station was not built.Under the development, will be a void for the future Eastern Busway station.In 2011, Brisbane School of Distance Education relocated to Coorparoo from its former site in West End. The school is the amalgamation of the Primary Correspondence School (opened on 24 January 1922), the Secondary Correspondence School (opened in 1958) and the Preschool Correspondence (opened in 1974).

Coorparoo has a range of distinctive homes, buildings, and sites of interest, including:

Spanish Mission Revival homes along Cavendish Road. This was a popular inter-war house style introduced from California.

Ridgelands (1880s), built for the Blundell family

Cardington (1880s) at the corner of Norfolk Street and Cavendish Road. This residence was built by Thomas Howling who had purchased the allotments from early settler George Harden.

Barston Place (1880) on Norfolk Street, built for Scottish born James Burstall and named after his birthplace.

Coorparoo Shire Hall (1892) at the corner of Cavendish Road and Halstead Street. The building is now owned by the Coorparoo School of Arts and Memorial Hall Association Inc. and is known as The School of Arts Hall.

Restored Tram Post at the corner of Old Cleveland and Cavendish Roads.

Hatherton (1886). This elite residence was built for Reuben Nicklin whose previous residence was called Langlands. Reuben and his wife Jane were drowned in the RMS Quetta disaster in 1890. The house has subsequently been extensively renovated and changed and is now known as the heritage-listed "Queen Alexandra Home" having been used as a Methodist Home for children, teaching classrooms for the local TAFE College and more recently as a community centre.

Chatsworth (1888), built for William Evans who worked at Stewarts of Stones Corner. Chatsworth Road is named after this residence.

Langlands (1883), built for Reuben Nicklin. This building is in the grounds of the present Villanova College and is the oldest surviving masonry residence in Coorparoo.

Cavendish Road

Kirkland Avenue. A tree-lined street with views of the Brisbane CBD. This avenue was lined with larger Queenslander houses until the late 1960s when the Brisbane City Council allowed their demolition for blocks of units. Some of these units have been demolished and replaced with more modern blocks of units.