Kuraby

Kuraby, a residential suburb adjoining the Gateway Motorway, is 17 km south-east of central Brisbane. The suburb was part of an Agricultural Reserve proclaimed in 1861 and subdivided later during the decade for farm allotments.

It is thought that the name was derived from an Aboriginal word describing a local creek, but when the South Coast railway line was opened in 1885 the local stopping place was named Spring Creek. Renaming as Kuraby came four years later.

The area was used for timber harvesting and farming. Settlers sent their children to the school at Eight Mile Plains, and a school was not opened at Kuraby until 1928. Similarly, church attendances were centred on a Protestant Chapel (1902) at Eight Mile Plains.

A change to urbanisation began in the 1970s, and in 1978 Kuraby was proposed as the site for a Commonwealth Games village. Little came of it, but the Kuraby Hotel (1973) probably confirmed that an urban location with railway station and the proposed Gateway Motorway was a coming development site. That proved to be the case in the late 1990s. A larger primary school was opened in 1972 and the original site near the station became a special school.

Kuraby originally extended east to Logan Road, the boundary between Brisbane City and Albert Shire. The moving of the municipal boundary to Millers Road resulted in part of Kuraby being detached and put in a new suburb, Underwood (Logan City).

Several housing estates were developed during the 2000s as Kuraby was recognised as a convenient location, with a local railway station and access to the Gateway Motorway and the Pacific Highway. In the late 1970s a shopping centre and a Big W store near the railway station were opened. A large site either side of the Bulimba Creek, with both introduced animal and plant species but remnant native species has been reserved. Named Wally Tate Park, it remembers the Kuraby station master (1922-58).

Kuraby's census populations have been: