A brief look at a short history

Jondaryan Woolshed is now a living museum having served its purpose in the glory days of the wool industry in the Darling Downs area.

At one stage Jondaryan was one of those places that couldn’t decide whether it was a sheep station or a township. Up to 350 people lived and worked in the area and there were shops, pubs and services. While a good many tried to make a success of a pastoral industry in the area it took some decades for the original landholding to be expanded by acquisition to a viable size for things to really take off. At one stage it was the largest working shearing shed in Australia.

Then, after such a long gestation, a combination of factors led to its demise almost as quick (or as slow) as its rise. Jondaryan thrived as a railhead with the coming of the railway in the 1860s, and it was probably that factor ahead of all others that ensured its purpose and led to the thriving of the township that had taken some decades to get off the ground. In contrast, as much as that initial decision was far-sighted, when the time came for railway expansion, the leaders of Jondaryan shunned further development and so the railway expanded from Oakey instead. Today Oakey is the town and Jondaryan the museum.

It’s easy to think the farming industry has a long history here on the Darling Downs but perhaps that isn’t so true. After taking so long to get off the ground, the glory days were the 1870s – 1890s. The coming of organised labour then two world wars served to undermine further expansion. Government policy, and the provision of land to returned soldiers meant that large scale pastoral use gave way to more intensive cropping.

In that sense the Darling Downs as we know it today is really only about 50 years old. The past before that is symbolised by the empty shearing shed standing on 12 acres of what was previously hundreds of thousands. An even briefer period of dairying is remembered in the form of a cheese factory museum in the intervening period. Today we can look forward and wonder what the coal seam gas industry may make of the area.

The Darling Downs is on a cusp, but historically that is not uncommon. The area, with all its possibilities, is still looking for its niche.