Toowoomba, Australia

Population: 178,399 (2022 estimate)

Area: 192.3 square miles (498 square kilometers)

Founded: 1849

Toowoomba, the sixth-largest urban center in Queensland, Australia, is known as the state’s Garden City. It boasts more than 250 public parks, gardens, and green spaces and also hosts the country’s largest annual flower show, the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers. Other activities for which the city is known are horse racing, hiking, and cycling. The city has more than twenty-five suburbs and is 16 miles (27 kilometers) from Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, in the southeastern portion of the state.

Toowoomba is a mix of old and new. It maintains its legacy in historic buildings, heritage architecture, and the Highfields Pioneer Village, while incorporating new cafés, coffee bars, breweries, and restaurants, as well as about sixty commissioned murals that give the city a modern vibe.

Landscape

Toowoomba sits 2,297 feet (700 meters) above sea level on the western slope of the Great Dividing Range, also called the Eastern Highlands or Eastern Cordillera. These plateaus and low mountain ranges, which comprise eastern Australia’s main watershed, run for about 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers), more or less parallel to the eastern coast.

Toowoomba sits on the ridge between the Darling Downs agricultural region in the west and the Lockyer Valley, which is dotted with farms, grazing lands, and forested hills. The altitude assures the city of mild temperatures, cool breezes, and lofty views of the surrounding landscape. Summer temperatures are reliably in the range of 86 Fahrenheit (30 Celsius), while in winter the daytime average is 62 Fahrenheit (17 Celsius); winter nights drop to about 50 Fahrenheit (10 Celsius). This climate is hospitable to a wide variety of plants not seen in lower altitudes, making it possible for the city to be known as the Garden City.

In Australia, suburbs are postal subdivisions in cities. Suburbs of Toowoomba include Toowoomba City, Newtown, Harristown, Kearneys Spring, Wilsonton, South Toowoomba, East Toowoomba, North Toowoomba, Harlaxton, Rockville, Wilsonton Heights, Centenary Heights, Cranley, Mt. Lofty, Glenbale, Torrington, Middle Ridge, Darling Heights, Drayton, Rangeville, Wellcamp, Cotswold Hills, Blue Mountain Heights, and Highfields. Areas showing the most growth in the early 2020s included Wilsonton, Toowoomba City, Centenary Heights, Kearneys Spring, and Newtown.

People

In 2021, 79.8 percent of Toowoomba’s population reported having been born in Australia, with England, at 1.9 percent, the most common foreign homeland of the remaining citizens. Other residents of Toowoomba reported their countries of birth as New Zealand, India, Iraq, and the Philippines. The city also has a significant population of Aboriginal Australians and/or Torres Strait Islanders, who made up 4.8 percent of Toowoomba's population in 2021.

That year, 84.6 percent of the city's population only spoke English at home. The most common languages other than English were Kurdish and Mandarin, with smaller groups of people speaking Arabic, Punjabi, and Nepali. In 2021, 32.6 percent of people in Toowoomba reported having no religion, 19.8 percent of Toowoombans are Catholic, and 13.8 percent were Anglican.

Households comprised of couples with children and couples without children were almost equal, at 39.7 and 41.8 percent, respectively, and one-parent families accounted for 16.9 percent.

Economy

Toowoomba's gateway position, as a conduit through which business flows east to west, has long been a significant factor in its success. The net export industries are agriculture, education, health, manufacturing, and mining. The latter, primarily located in the Surat Basin, contributes to the region’s economy through mining operations and support services such as well drilling. Though not as strong as in the past, agriculture continues to be an important industry, in particular beef, dairy, grain, cotton, pork, and poultry products. The most valuable agricultural commodity was the egg industry, closely followed by cotton.

Health care and social assistance were the main economic sectors in Toowoomba City, with the region's three major hospitals as major employers. Significant percentages of the city's workforce were employed as technicians and trade workers, and clerical and administrative workers also made up a large portion of the workforce. Smaller percentages of Toowoomba's labor force worked in primary education, secondary education, higher education, and aged care residential services.

Landmarks

The greater Toowoomba region is marked by farmlands and forests. Perched atop the Great Dividing Range, the Picnic Point Lookout and Parkland is 160 acres of forest and parkland dotted with picnic areas and cafés. Walking trails enable visitors to amble to a waterfall, while the more adventurous take the steep path up the Table Top Mountain.

The Condamine River flows from Darling Downs through the city. In the outskirts of Toowoomba, trails crisscross the waterway. The city center is skirted by two creeks that converge in the North.

With literally hundreds of green spaces, visitors and residents alike gravitate to the parks and public spaces. The Queens Park Botanical Garden is the city’s jewel. The many trees planted during the nineteenth century have matured, creating canopies over the lawns. The park also includes playgrounds and an off-leash dog park. The University of Southern Queensland’s Japanese garden, Ju Raku En, has 1.8 miles (3 kilometers) of paths leading visitors through mountain stream and waterfall gardens, a dry garden, azalea hill, and a central lake. In the garden are 230 species of Australian native and Japanese plants and trees. Laurel Bank Park is known for its scented garden, which was created for the visually impaired by the Downs Association of the Blind.

Toowoomba’s heritage is on display at the Cobb+Co Museum. Displays include steam trains and the National Carriage Collection. Workshops showcase such trades as blacksmithing, silversmithing, and whip plaiting. The Russell Street Historical Walk showcases the architecture of the city’s historic district.

The Toowoomba Hi-Tec Oils Speedway offers motorsports for all tastes. These include sprint car championships, speed cars, and V8 super sedans. Fans of horsepower of the equine variety cheer their favorites at the Toowoomba Turf Club at Clifford Park, where more than forty-five thoroughbred race meetings are held every year.

History

The Toowoomba area was inhabited for at least forty thousand years by the Giabal tribe. The first European to visit the area was Allan Cunningham, who explored Toowoomba and the Darling Downs in 1827. As settlers began to arrive, they brought diseases such as measles and smallpox, which nearly wiped out the area's Indigenous population by 1870.

Toowoomba’s history as a settlement begins in the early 1840s about 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) southwest of the marshland where the village was established. In an area known as The Springs, stockmen would spend the night as they were passing through Darling Downs. The Downs provided grazing and cereal-growing lands, while timber was harvested from the ranges. The ranges also provided grazing lands for dairy farms.

When he arrived at The Springs in 1842, Thomas Alford named his place after the village of Drayton in England. Discontented with the dry spells that plagued The Springs, he moved northeast to a marshland known as Drayton Swamp. The place afforded him good farmland for his market garden and was better situated near a track to Brisbane. Alford’s settlement was surrounded by land that was surveyed for farm lots and a township. He renamed his home Toowoomba; unverified reports variably indicate that this was based on the name of a native melon or an Aboriginal description of the swamp. Toowoomba was founded as a village in 1849.

As the farm lots around Alford’s property were sold, the population of the Drayton settlement gradually moved to Toowoomba. Hotels were opened in 1856 and 1857, and the Church of England and Presbyterian churches were built, opening in 1857 and 1859, respectively. The village was upgraded to town status in 1858. Two years later, those remaining Drayton residents suggested to Toowoomba’s citizens that they create a local government division encompassing both settlements, but Toowoomba rejected the idea. Instead, former transported convict William Groom, who was formerly a Drayton storekeeper, led a drive to form a Toowoomba municipality in 1860. He succeeded and became the first mayor of Toowoomba.

A Crown Reserve was located in the center of Toowoomba. The local council took control of this 64-acre (26-hectare) green space, renamed Queen’s Park, in 1865. The Toowoomba and Drayton Agricultural Society established its first exhibition the following year. This event and the development of Queen’s Park, which was about 20 acres (8 hectares) larger than the Botanic Gardens in Brisbane, established the municipality’s reputation as the Garden City of Queensland.

Groom, who went on to become a Member of Parliament in Queensland, continued to support his home region. In 1875 he founded and chaired the Toowoomba Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society to finance local development. By 1876, the year a rail connection to Brisbane was completed, the population of Toowoomba was about four thousand people. Toowoomba and Gowrie Junction became railway hubs.

The agricultural operations in the region prompted the 1874 opening of the Toowoomba Foundry, which began making farm equipment such as wagons and troughs. It soon expanded to build wind pumps, steam engines, and locomotives. Though the pastoral estates held little cattle by the turn of the twentieth century, the livestock sale yards bustled with cattle from the west. Agriculture remained a mainstay of the economy, with the Downs Cooperative Dairy Association opening a butter factory in 1905; dairy farmers who fed skimmed milk to pigs established the Darling Downs Cooperative Bacon Association five years later. In 1904 the town’s status was raised to city.

The twentieth century saw the decline of the Downs dairy industry, along with the cooperatives it spawned, although the population in 1949 was about forty thousand, a number that doubled by 2000. As manufacturing and industry declined in the latter half of the century, wholesale and retail employment increased; better roads drew tourists to the area, increasing demand for service industries.

Toowoomba had long been known for its many high-quality private schools. In 1967 the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education opened in Darling Heights. In 1992 it became the University of Southern Queensland. Toowoomba Regional Council was formed in 2008 with the combination of Cambooya, Clifton, Crows Nest, Jondaryan, Pittsworth, and Rosalie Shires. The estimated population at that time was about 153,000.

The path of the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail, which in the early 2020s was slated to be completed around 2027, crosses the divide north of Toowoomba. The first section became operational in 2020; in November of that year, construction began on the second section. While the rail was under construction, local politicians expressed hope that the railway would boost development throughout the region and reduce road traffic by offering new opportunities to industry moving freight, especially to and from the coast to the interior.

Bibliography

“History.” Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers, 2020, www.tcof.com.au/history/. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Indigenous History.” Toowoomba Region, 2024, www.tr.qld.gov.au/our-region/history/indigenous-history/7870-indigenous-history. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail.” Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities, investment.infrastructure.gov.au/projects/key-projects/melbourne-brisbane-inland-rail. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Toowoomba.” Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021, abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/317. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Toowoomba.” Centre for the Government of Queensland, queenslandplaces.com.au/toowoomba. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Toowoomba Population 2024.” Population Australia, 2024, www.population.net.au/toowoomba-population/. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Toowoomba Region Economic Profile.” Toowoomba Regional Council, Mar. 2017, www.tsbe.com.au/sites/default/files/uploaded-content/field‗f‗content‗file/7358967economicprofilemarch2017.pdf. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

"What Is Inland Rail?" Inland Rail, 2024, inlandrail.com.au/what-is-inland-rail/. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.