D’Aguilar and Neurum

D'Aguilar and Neurum are 60 km and 75 km respectively north-west of Brisbane. D'Aguilar is reached by the D'Aguilar Highway, travelling north-west from Caboolture, and Neurum is off the highway in country that drains into the Stanley River and the Somerset dam. Both places are in the northern foothills of the D'Aguilar Range which extends as far south as Mount Coot-tha.

The range was named by Major Edmund Lockyer in 1825 after Sir George D'Aguilar, with whom he had served in Sicily, Spain and India. The name 'Neurum' is thought to have derived from an Aboriginal expression describing a pockmarked mountain.

D'Aguilar and Neurum are separated by Woodford (see separate entry), all of which underwent farm selection in the 1880s. Neurum's school, however, predated Woodford's by two years, opening in 1880. D'Aguilar did not have a school but its near neighbour, Delaneys Creek, had a school opening in 1892. Neurum's school closed in 1942 but the Delaneys Creek school continues.

The post office directory for 1913 recorded 14 dairy farmers, 13 other farmers, three stores, a sawmill and the Hotel D'Aguilar at D'Aguilar and Delaneys Creek. Neurum had fewer farmers, two timbergetters and a post office. In the 1930s there were about equal numbers of dairy farmers and banana/fruit growers at Neurum, but after the war most went into dairying. In terms of occupations, D'Aguilar and Delaneys Creek remained much the same as in 1913.

The year 1913 marked the opening of the railway from Caboolture to Kilcoy, with stopping places at D'Aguilar and Neurum. The line was closed in 1964, and the D'Aguilar station building has been re-built at Woodford beside a fragment of railway line.

D'Aguilar, Delaneys Creek and Neurum have rural acreages and rural/residential subdivisions. There are a hotel/motel, and a store at D'Aguilar, and a bush-retreat camping area on Neurum Creek, south of Neurum.

Census populations have been:

*and environs