Menu
- 19th Century
- 20th Century
- 21st Century
- Defining
- Defining - Themes
- User Guides
- Surprise Me
Marburg
The township of Marburg developed on the banks of the Black Snake Creek, said to have been named because numerous black snakes came out of the scrub as it was cleared. Before white settlement, the Marburg district was an area of dense scrubland, forming part of the huge Rosewood Scrub. It was described by early explorers Oxley and Cunningham in September 1824 when they viewed it from the top of Mt Crosby. Cunningham later experienced the scrub's dense tangles when he set out from Ipswich in 1829 and reached the scrub near Fairney View. He was unable to penetrate it and turned back through the more open forest near present-day Walloon, round Mt Marrow to Rosewood.
This township was at first referred to as Frederich (also spelt Frederick) after a prominent early settler and postmaster. It was later named Marburg after a town in Prussia. During the period of anti-German feeling during World War I, the town was renamed Townshend but reverted to Marburg in 1920. By the 1880s, Marburg was a thriving township. Marburg Hotel opened in 1881 and a School of Arts was built in 1885, the town being lit by electricity for the opening courtesy of Thomas Lorimer Smith who had installed electricity at this sawmill at Woodlands.
The Queensland National Bank was established in 1887 and a Court House in 1891. The railway was extended to Marburg in late 1911 but traffic declined in the 1920s and 1930s and the line eventually closed in 1965.
References (offline)Expanded Ipswich Heritage Study (1997)