Maleny - Did You Know?

*There are two possible explanations for the naming of Maleny and both of them are spelling mistakes. One theory argues that it was named Maleny because the Balfour brothers, who established the Colinton Station in 1841, were surveyors and they named Malleny Mountain on the Blackall Range after the tiny Scottish town of Malleny. Alternatively it was named after a surveyor named Maloney who worked in the local area. Either way the spelling was pretty bad. It is either Maleny but should be Malleny or Maleny and it should be Maloney ... but never Maleny.

 

* The area was once occupied by the Nalbo and Dallambara peoples of the Gubbi Gubbi nation who each year gathered at Baroon Pocket on the banks of the Obi Obi River to feast on Bunya nuts. The explorer Ludwig Leichhardt witnessed one of these gatherings and described it as "This plain they call Booroon ... seems the rendezvous for fights between the hostile tribes who come from near and far to enjoy the harvest of the Bunya". In fact it was an annual gathering of Aborigines from as far away as the Gold Coast and the Darling Downs.

* By the 1850s timber cutters had moved into the district and for the next few decades the primary industries were timber cutting and sawmilling. Not surprisingly when it came to naming Maleny's streets the timber industry was acknowledged with streets named Maple, Myrtle and Cedar. By the 1870s the district had a timber mill and a blacksmith.

* On 13 November, 1878 Isaac Burgess selected land on the present site of Maleny. It was the beginning of a period when dairy and beef cattle were grazed on the rich grasses which resulted from the substantial annual rainfall and the rich red volcanic soils.

* A school was opened in 1886 and a local post office in 1890. The town was officially proclaimed in 1891.

* Although dairy farming dominated the local economy (a butter factory was opened in in 1904 and a second factory in 1912) the area became increasingly focussed on mixed farming with small crops and orchards replacing the pasturelands.

* Maleny remained a rural service town until the 1980s when retirees, seeking a cool alternative to the coast, moved in and started building large houses on one and two acre lots. This evolved into the town becoming an arts and crafts centre with a dominant alternative lifestyle. Perhaps the best symbol of this alternative lifestyle was the town's passionate attempt to resist the arrival of a Woolworths supermarket in the early years of the twenty-first century.
  


NB:Information copied directly from the Aussie Towns site which contains other amazing links for exploration!