Booie is a rural area 12 km north-east of Kingaroy. It was named after a pastoral station and is it thought that the name derived from an Aboriginal word describing a snake.
Selectors took up farms in the partly-cleared hills of Booie in the early 1880s, and the Booie Progress Association secured the opening of a provisional school in 1892. The post office directory in 1902 recorded 42 selectors at Booie and the youthful Miss McNichol at the one-teacher school. She married and settled there, and was buried in the Booie cemetery.
Dairy farmers had the choice of the Kingaroy and Nanango butter factories. The long, looping railway line from Gympie was extended to Kingaroy in 1904 and to Nanango in 1911. The Booie public hall, c1930, replaced barns and farm buildings for dances and gatherings.
Since the 1990s Booie has become a venue for South Burnett gourmet tourism. It has three wineries, restaurants and bed-and-breakfast facilities. It has considerable rural/residential living.
Booie's census populations have been:
| Census Date | Population |
|---|---|
| 1911 | 421 |
| 1921 | 217 |
| 1947 | 244 |
| 2006 | 1575 |
| 2011 | 912 |
Tony Matthews, Landscapes of change: a history of the South Burnett, South Burnett Local Government Association, 1997
