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Oakey If every Oakey creek around the countryside had a town named after it, we would have towns of this name all over the place, but it fell only to this town on the Darling Downs to carry the name of its adjacent Oakey Creek. Leichhardt noted the she-oaks growing in the creek bed. The township developed after the railway line came through in 1867. Obi Obi It is generally thought that this name is a variant of a local Aboriginal leader's name, although it could also refer to evil spirit. Ocean View Views of Moreton Bay are obtainable from this upland area between Dayboro and Mt Mee. J.L. Zillman and Kenneth McLennan selected large areas of land here in 1873. It was noted for its timber. The Ocean View State School was there from 1922 to 1963. O'Reillys Eight O'Reilly men took up blocks on the Roberts Plateau in July 1911 : Tom, Herb, Mick, Norbert and Ped of one family, and Luke, Pat and Joe of the other. Four years later the Lamington National Park was proclaimed largely as a result of the urgings of two men, Robert Martin Collins and Romeo Watkins Lahey. As a result no further blocks were opened up and the O'Reillys' land formed an isolated pocket surrounded by National Park. Ormeau Major A.J.Boyd, after his army career, acquired land on which he grew sugar and established a sugar mill. To this property he gave the name of Ormeau, for his wife had lived on Ormeau Road, Belfast, when a girl. When the railway was put through it passed right through his property. He ran a private school on Pimpama Creek for a while. Ormiston Captain the Honourable Louis Hope, the seventh son of the first Earl of Hopetoun, has been described as a man of style. He purchased land overlooking Raby Bay and built Ormiston House there. Expecting Cleveland to be developed as the port for the Moreton Bay region he thought that the area where he built would become an exclusive part of town. The first house, planks of pit-sawn cedar, later became the kitchen. The main house itself was built by Scottish tradesmen brought out especially for the job. Bricks were baked in a kiln on the property. He also built a small chapel and rectory there. Hope established here Queensland's first commercial sugar plantation. He started the practice of bringing South Sea Islanders over to work on the Queensland sugar plantations, and this led to what was called blackbirding in the islands. The area took its name from the house, while the house took its name from the family's ancestral home in Scotland. Oxenford The Oxenford
name came to the Coomera region with the arrival of
William Robert Oxenford around 1869. He grew sugarcane, and later rice
and flax. He introduced Ayrshire cattle to the area, owned the first
cream separator and was a champion ploughman. John Oxley, as
the Surveyor-General of Lands in New South Wales, was given the job of
locating a site for a new convict settlement in 1823, and as a result
of his recommendations Governor Brisbane decided that it should be
situated at Moreton Bay. He came with the first party of soldiers and
convicts, located the first, temporary, settlement at Redcliffe and
made recommendations about suitable sites for the permanent settlement
up along the banks of the Brisbane River. |