Kingston

Kingston, an inner suburb of Logan City, immediately south east of Logan Central, is 22 km -south-east of central Brisbane. It was named in 1890 after Charles Kingston who, in 1871, took up 200 acres in the area then known as Scrubby Creek, a tributary of the Logan River and flowing south of Kingston. Both Scrubby Creek and nearby Slacks Creeks supplied an abundance of water for dairying and they, along with the Beenleigh railway line (1885), provided the means for a vigorous dairy industry and butter factory.

Charles Kingston became a substantial local landholder and his Kingston House in Hibiscus Street became a local social centre. Several family members are buried in the heritage-listed pioneer cemetery in Bega Road.

Apart from the opening of the railway line little unusual happened until Logan dairy farmers put Kingston on a short list of places for a cooperative dairy factory. Kingston was chosen because of its certainty of water supply and proximity to the railway, and the South Queensland Cooperative Dairy Company opened its Kingston factory in 1907. Employees' houses were built nearby.  A state primary school opened in 1912 and a school of arts opened in Mary Street in 1918. By the 1930s the factory had cream suppliers as far away as Toowoomba and it was Queensland's largest producer of butter. A new factory was built in 1932.

The sale and subdivision of some dairy farms in the 1950s led to the factory being taken over by Peters (1958) which later converted it to cheese-making.

Kingston, situated in Albert Shire and on a railway line, had the attraction of lower residential land prices and relaxed subdivision standards compared with Brisbane City. Urbanisation spread apace, and Kingston's census populations went from 690 to 8380 during 1966-76. A Catholic primary school (1981) and a State high school (1977) were opened. Peters closed the factory in 1983 and, with the swift passing of Logan's rural heritage, the council acquired the factory for use as an arts and crafts centre. A related initiative by the Council and the National Trust was the preservation of heritage-listed Mayes Cottage (1887) and farm outbuildings in Mawarra Street.

The Logan motorway runs along the southern border of Kingston, but the suburb is not itself a major traffic generator: its nearest regional shopping centres are at Logan Central Plaza and Browns Plains. Kingston Palms shopping centre is on Kingston Road, south of the railway station. Groves Christian College (1999) has campuses on the former Catholic school site and between the state primary and high schools.

Kingston's census populations have been: