Sunday, May 3, 2009

The Gold Coast And It's Interesting History

By Coraline Kennedy

aborigines named Queensland's south coast, Kurrungul, which was a word meaning endless timber. This area was a meetinig place for the many tribes where they would come to camp and fish in it's many estuaries and creeks. Captain Cook sailed here in 1770, and named both Point Danger and Mount Warning, but it was n ot until the 1840's that this area became popular to the European settlers. These settlers came, not for the beaches, but for the timber.

The Gold Coast hinterlands supply of cedar began drawing timber cutters to the region in large numbers in the mid 1800s and in 1865 the township of Merang (named after the aboriginal word for shovel nosed shark ) was surveyed and used as a base for the industry. The surrounding valleys and plains were quickly developed as cattle, sugar and cotton farms and by 1869 settlement had reached the mouth of the Nerang River on the southern edge of Moreton Bay.

The Governor of Queensland, Musgrave, built his vacation home on a hill just north of Southport. At this time the coastal surroundings began to gain a reputation of being a resort town for the rich and famous. After the finish of the railway in 1889, numerous hotels and guest houses were built up and down the area's coastline.

The population of permanenet residents was slowly increasing yearly until the road between Brisbane and Southport was built in 1925. It was also in 1925 that the original Surfers Paradise hotel was built. This glorious hotel burned in 1936, but it was quickly rebuilt on an even grander scale and even included a zoo in the back.

Developers began to recognize this area and refer to it as the Gold Coast by the 1940's. It was not officially named that until 1958. The development of high rise buildings began in the 1950's and continued into the 1980's, however the skyline began to really soar after the Japanese investment in the 1980's. This area is home to over 500,000, making it Australia's sixth largest city. It is also home to one of the tallest residential buildings in all the world.

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