Keperra

Keperra, a residential suburb on the Ferny Grove railway line, is nine km north-west of central Brisbane. The name is an Aboriginal word referring to a young man or a bora ring; a large bora ring has been nearly obliterated by earthworks at the Keperra golf club entry road.

Keperra is on Samford Road and borders the south bank of Kedron Brook. It had good upstream farmland and early European settlers, John and William Nicholson, built St Matthews Anglican church in 1869. The district, generally known as Grovely, was centred around the church and, later the Grovely railway station on the Ferny Grove/Dayboro line (1918).

In 1940 Grovely had a military camp and the prospect of spreading urbanisation brought a service reservoir to the district in 1954. In 1956 the Grovely primary school was opened. Keperra was the next (westerly) railway station (1932), a short walk away from the Keperra golf links (1931) which ran alongside Kedron Brook and across it into Arana Hills. In 1957 the Keperra post office was opened south of the railway station and the St William's Catholic primary school in Dawson Parade was also opened. At the suburb's south-east corner the Mitchelton high school was opened in 1956. There is a large Housing Commission estate near the Catholic school.

Keperra thus matured during the 1950s-60s, and by the 1970s had overtaken Grovely as the suburb's name. Shopping was provided at local stores and at Brookside drive-in, two kilometres away in Mitchelton. In 2000 the Great Western Super Centre was opened on Samford Road, offering a supermarket and 55 shops. Somewhat on Keperra's southern fringe, the shopping centre adjoins considerable undeveloped bushland, but opposite it the former drive-in cinema (1966) has been redeveloped as the Kingsgrove housing estate. The Keperra Sanctuary retirement village is east of the shopping centre, set in the 97 acres of undeveloped bushland. A public reserve, Keperra Bushland, is south of Kingsgrove.

Keperra's census populations have been: