Chinchilla is a town that is rapidly growing. The
Surat Basin Natural Gas and Coal fields have provided the area a great economic boost.
Services include-
IGA and Woolworths Supermarkets, 2
Bakery's, 2 Butchers, 2 Pharmacies, Newsagent,
Post Office, Ambulance, Police, Fire and Rescue,
DUMP POINT, ANZ Bank, Westpac Bank, Commonwealth Bank, National Bank, A Very good
Visitor Information Centre, Dominos Pizza
Shop, Toyota, Holden and Ford Dealers, McDonalds, Caletx, BP,
Shell service stations. Currenlty under construction is KFC and Subway.
1.Chinchilla is 302 metres above sea level.
2.There is some debate about where the name Chinchilla comes from. There is a small rodent called a Chinchilla, the fur of which was a valuable commodity (early settlers in this area trapped possums for their fur). However, most agree that it came from the local Aboriginal word for the Cypress Pine, Jinchilla. Local legend says that when the application was made by Matthew Goggs for Chinchilla Station, the
Sydney Registrations Office changed the name from Jinchilla to Chinchilla.
3.The floral emblem for Chinchilla is the Weeping Callistemon or Vinalis Bottlebrush (two of these trees are located outside the Chinchilla Customer Service Centre in Heeney St).
4.The local Indigenous people is the Barangun people, closely affiliated with the Wakka Wakka people of the South Burnett/Kingaroy region. Neighbouring clans to the Barungan boundaries include Yiman, Wuli-Wuli, Ngarabul, Bigambul, and the Manganganji people.
5.The Barakula Forest, situated just 23km from Chinchilla, is the largest
State Forest in the Southern Hemisphere. Driving along Auburn Road to the forest you will pass several historic landmarks, such as Australia’s first oil
bore, the Guymer baby bush grave (circa 1920) and the
Dingo Barrier Fence (which has sonic deterrent on the
grid).
6.The Chinchilla Wattle is a rare variety of the Acacia and can be found in the Barakula Forest. There are over 60 varieties of Wattle in the Barakula Forest including the rare Hando’s Wattle (Acacia handonis, named for local amateur botanist Val Hando).
7.The earliest grave in the Chinchilla
Pioneer Cemetery (opposite the VIC) is located on the back fence and belongs to Thomas Cooke, who died suddenly in 1892. There are also many anonymous bush
graves in the area, from long before the
cemetery was built.
8.The earliest grave in the Brigalow
Pioneer Cemetery (on Haystack Rd, off Brigalow Canaga Creek Rd) is dated 1914 and belongs to E. R. Schloss. The
cemetery is predominantly German as there was once a Lutheran church nearby. 100m further up Brigalow Canaga Creek Rd the old Noola Plains State School gates still stand.
9.The Chinchilla Cultural Centre was opened in 1999 and features a movie theatre, the town library and function rooms.
10.The Chinchilla
Visitor Information Centre on the
Warrego Highway is the place to pick up all your information, or just relax on the verandah with a Devonshire tea and scones served with jam and cream.
10 Facts About Chinchilla’s History
1.Jinchilla was recorded by Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt during his exploration west of what is now known as
Brisbane. Leichhardt was born on 23 October 1813 in a small village 80km from Berlin. He studied at Berlin University, achieving a natural science degree before travelling through Europe and to Australia.
2.Leichhardt made several expeditions from
Brisbane in towards Central Australia and up towards
Darwin. His first expedition party included James Calvert,
John Roper,
John Murphy, Bill Phillips (a convict on “leave”),
John Gilbert, Charles “Charley” Fisher (an Aboriginal tracker), Caleb (from Africa), and Pemberton Hodgson. Not many of this party returned with Ludwig for the second expedition.
3.Leichhardt first travelled through the Chinchilla region in 1844. Several members of Leichhardt’s travelling party became lost, so Leichhardt sent Charley Fisher, an Aboriginal tracker, to search for them while the rest of the party rested and set up
camp by a creek bed they found. When Charley arrived days later after finding the rest of the party, Leichhardt named the creek after him – it is still known as Charley’s Creek, and is situated on the western side of Chinchilla. Leichhardt made several other expeditions through the region, before his mysterious disappearance in 1848.
4.The first recorded settler in Chinchilla was Matthew Buscall Goggs. In 1846 Goggs built Chinchilla Station, which was capable of grazing 2,500 head of cattle on 36,800 acres. Wongongera Station came two years later and is estimated to have been 147,200 acres. The original Stationmaster’s house can now be seen at the Chinchilla Historical Museum.
5.The earliest known settlers in the Barakula District were Lucy May and Fredrick Muller. Fred was highly involved in the timber industry.
6.The first white woman to settle in the area was Bridget Burke, who married Matthew Goggs in 1852, settling at Chinchilla Station. She died in 1862 in England after giving birth to the first white child in the area – a baby girl, Mary Goggs.
7.The railway was extended from
Toowoomba to
Dalby in 1868, then from
Dalby to
Roma in 1871. This made life a lot easier for the dairy, timber and wool industries in the area.
8.In 1877, Surveyor Woodhouse laid out the actual township of Chinchilla.
9.Completion of the first telegraph line from
Dalby to Chinchilla was completed in late 1877, and made communication much faster and easier.
10.The Prickly Pear pandemic commenced in Chinchilla in the 1890’s and manual removal of the pear failed. In 1925 the government introduced Cactoblastis cactorum, a moth from South America, which lays its eggs on the plant. When the larva hatches, it eats its way through the plant, eventually killing it – and it was so effective that it brought the pandemic under control after just one year. The Boonarga Cactoblastis Hall (10km east) was built, and is the only building in the southern hemisphere to honour an insect.