Coominya

Coominya is a rural town west of the Wivenhoe Dam and 20 km south-east of Esk. It is on the former Brisbane Valley railway.

The Coominya area was part of the Wivenhoe pastoral station (1840s), which was subdivided in 1868. The Bellevue selection occupied the Coominya area. When the railway was opened in 1886 the local siding was named Bellevue. A town was surveyed near the station in 1905, and the name was changed to 'Coominya', derived from an Aboriginal expression thought to mean surface water or lagoons. Further farm selections followed, several worked by German families who had an association with the community at nearby Lowood. There were several vineyards, productive until the 1950s.

A primary school opened in 1912, and its enrolments were boosted by soldier-settler orchardists in the early 1920s. There were a sawmill (1910) and a saleyard near the railway siding. During the early 1920s three churches were built: Presbyterian (1920), Catholic (1921, the most elaborately finished of the three) and Anglican (1922). There was no school of arts, but a 'tin hall' (1927) served for many years. Town electricity was switched on in 1935.

The construction of the Wivenhoe Dam led to the Bellevue homestead (100 squares) being removed to Coominya by the National Trust in 1975. At about that time a housing estate was developed. School enrolments went from 38 in 1972 to 210 in 1985. The railway was closed in 1989, but 19 years later a rail trail was opened, replete with the old Coominya station building. The abattoir closed in 2005.

Coominya has the Bellevue Hotel (1903), a store, a café, the Bellevue homestead and a progress association.

Coominya's census populations, which have expanded since 2006 to take in surrounding rural areas, have been: