Mount Cotton

Mount Cotton, a partly developed outer suburb, is 27 km south-east of Brisbane. It was named by government surveyor Dickson in 1840 after Major Sydney Cotton, recently the commandant of Moreton Bay. The mount is two km east of the State primary school.

Originally covered in forest and scrub, Mount Cotton was settled in the early 1870s by farm selectors, many of German origin, who grew maize and other crops. They later turned to citrus orchards. A school was opened in 1876. There was an active timber industry, as it was found that there were extensive stands of the white ant-resistant mountain beech.

In 1879 the Tingalpa local government division was created, erecting its offices at Mount Cotton. The place, however, continued as a rural village well into the 1960s. Farming diversified into dairying, fruit and vegetables. Mount Cotton's old 'civic centre' comprises the primary school, public hall (1930s) and Lutheran church (1875). The Lutheran cemetery on Mount Cotton Road is in neighbouring Cornubia. The newer residential area is to the south-east, with the Bayview Village shopping centre and extensive linear parks. Mount Cotton also has an agricultural research farm, the Mount Cotton Winery and several conservation areas. The largest conservation area is the 225 acre Venman Bushland National Park, gifted for only $1 by Jack Venman in 1971. Mostly open forest, the park protects the headwaters of Tingalpa Creek to the west of Mount Cotton. Mount Cotton's census populations, which since 2006 have taken in rural areas west of the village centre, have been: