Ekibin, a suburban locality 8 km south-east of central Brisbane is now part of Tarragindi. It was named after the Ekibin Creek, a watercourse with headwaters from Toohey Forest Park, Holland Park West and Greenslopes. These streams joined Ekibin Creek in the vicinity of the Greenslopes private hospital, whereupon the creek widened, becoming the Burnett Swamp. The swampy watercourse, originally expressed as Ekkibon (thought to be an Aboriginal word describing the creek), becomes Norman Creek at Logan Road, Stones Corner.
Ekibin Creek/Burnett Swamp is readily traceable by a series of parklands, chief among them Ekibin Park, Thompson Estate Reserve and Hanlon Park (Annerley and Greenslopes). The creek's name extends back along the headwaters originating at Holland Park West.
Burnett Swamp lay between the southern access routes of Ipswich Road and Logan Road, and land subdivisions spreading out either side of those roads had considerable space to take up before attention turned to the swamp. Both roads had tram lines by the late 1930s which were an encouragement to urban growth, but Ekibin Creek remained a semi wilderness with questionable water quality from industrial run-off. The creek had been chosen by Thomas Stephens as a site for a wool scour (1859). Stephens became the district's leading identity, and his son William served on the Stephens Shire Council for over 30 years. The Stephens Shire included Ekibin, its northern boundary running along Cornwall Street until its amalgamation with greater Brisbane in 1925.
During the interwar years children from Annerley used the creek as a play area. The Tarragindi Hill service reservoir (1922) was in position for early postwar urbanisation as was the primary school (1926) in neighbouring Wellers Hill. Much later in the postwar years service reservoirs were built at Wellers Hill and Toohey Mountain.
Between 1947 and 1971 Ekibin was identified as a census district extending from the Boggo Road Gaol to the Tarragindi reservoir, enclosing nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century housing, most of the former Burnett Swamp, and all of the Ekibin suburb. The suburb's thoroughfare, Cracknell Street, held the post office and Catholic church and school. A Baptist church and the Tarragindi bowls club are to the south.
With the passing of the Ekibin census district in 1976 the name was subsumed by Tarragindi.
John Kerr, ed, The annals of Annerley, Brisbane, Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 1997
Annie Mackenzie, Memories along the Boggo Track, Bowen Hills, Boolarong Publications, 1992
Juliet O'Brien et al, A history of Wellers Hill, Tarragindi and Ekibin 1850-1976, Brisbane, Wellers Hill State School, 1976
