DAYBORO'S HISTORY - "THE TOWN OF YESTERYEAR'

Dayboro was first known as Hamilton, after Hugh Hamilton, who was appointed as Receiving Officer for Mail in 1875. His farm was known as Hamilton's but the name was later shortened to Hamilton.

In 1892 the township and Post Office became known as Terrors Creek, being named after an Arab stallion, Terah (who had a penchant for chasing certain people he did not like), owned by Captain Griffin of Whiteside Station, and the creek on which the township stood.

On May 24th,1917, the name was changed to its current name of Dayboro because the Postmaster-General declared that Terror's Creek sounded too much like Torrens Creek and once again the township acquired a new name, derived from another identity of the area, William Henry Day, who was Clerk of Petty Sessions and then Police Magistrate in Brisbane. He selected land in the area in the late 1860's and established a sugar plantation and mill on the site of the current town using Kanaka labour.

In the 1890's, moves had started to get a rail link to the area and finally work began in May 1915. The railway eventually came from Enoggera via Samford to Dayboro, being opened on 25th September 1920. Unfortunately, the line closed on 1st July 1955 due to the declining dairy and banana industry and the switch to trucks for transport, meaning the railway had become uneconomic.

Dairying was the main industry in the district since the land was first opened for selection in 1868 but has declined dramatically over recent years although there are still a few dairies in the area. Maize, potatoes and other vegetables also supplemented the income of the early pioneers. The Silverwood Dairy Factory opened in 1903. in 1916, the farmers formed a cooperative association and bought out Denham & Reid and by the mid 1920's had established a very lucrative trade in unsalted butter with the London market. Refrigeration and improved transport made the need of the factory as a depot for bulk milk unnecessary, and the factory finally closed on 30th June 1965 with milk being sent direct from the farms to Brisbane. The transport of milk is now undertaken by bulk milk tankers.

Timber-getting was a flourishing industry from the late 1860's for many years, assisted by the 1887 opening of the North Coast Rail Line and later the Enoggera-Dayboro line in 1920, there being millions of feet of timber in the mountains beyond Dayboro. A number of sawmills operated in the area.

Bananas had been grown in the area since the early 1900's and by the 1930's banana plantations dotted the hillsides. In the early 1930's this area was the main producer for the Brisbane markets. Unfortunately, in 1930 a disastrous bushfire totally destroyed the Mt Pleasant and Mt Mee banana settlement plantations. Flying foxes also did much damage. Banana-growing became unprofitable with many crop failures and also the importation of bananas from Fiji in the 1930's, although continued to flourish in the Lacey's Creek area. The industry steadily declined but continued on a smaller scale until recent years.

Pineapples have also been grown in the district since the early 1900's and pineapple plantations can still be seen today.

Many of the buildings in Dayboro date from the First World War, when the area boomed as a dairying and timber centre, with a further boom in 1936 when electricity was installed in the town. Many of these buildings in the town are still identifiable from early photographs.

When you are in the area, pay a visit to Dayboro Cottage (home of Tourism Pine Rivers Association Inc. and the Dayboro District Historical Society) at 27 Williams Street, Dayboro, where you can browse through various reference books and learn more about Dayboro and the families who pioneered the area.