Woodridge

Woodridge, an inner suburb of Logan City immediately north of Logan Central, is 20 km south-east of central Brisbane. It was a well timbered area upstream of Slacks Creek, and part of it was owned by the Mayes family whose historic cottage (1887) is preserved in Kingston.

The Beenleigh railway line though Woodridge was opened in 1885, providing an outlet for sawn timber. Grahams timber siding was opened in 1913, and in the next year another sawmiller subdivided land on the west side of the line and marketed it as the Woodridge estate. The land was elevated and timbered, and the name mimicked the topography. The siding was named Woodridge in 1917.

In the early 1920s there were a hall, a post office and two sawmills west of the railway line, and after considerable local agitation a provisional school was opened in 1924.

The Woodridge estate was subdivided into 10 acre farms, marketed as suitable for poultry raising and fruit and vegetable growing. The subdivision was only moderately successful. In the late 1950s residential subdivision was a more viable proposition, offering cheaper house allotments and more relaxed subdivision standards than in Brisbane City. The large Trinder estate was supplied with its own railway station.

Woodridge was developed with the assistance of the state housing commission, attracting a large number of migrant families. Reticulated water was laid on in 1963, but the education authorities were slower in laying on sufficient primary school campuses: the school's enrolment topped 1680 in 1974, the largest in Queensland. Civic and social amenities were near the school and the railway station. Railway Parade was the address for a Catholic primary school (1954), Anglican and Lutheran churches (1955, 1964) and the Woodridge hall child welfare service (1961). On the other (north-east) side of the railway, shops were built along Station Road.

Albert Shire opened a sub office in Woodridge in Wembley Street and it was there that the newly created Logan Shire held its first meeting in 1979. The site became Logan Central.

Woodridge was actively assisted by a local progress association, publishing a local news digest in 1965-76 and keeping up the progress hall as the district's social centre. Within a few years the association was overshadowed by progress, as new churches, shopping centres and Catholic and State schools were opened. In addition to the first State primary school there are Woodridge North primary (1967), the Catholic primary (1969), Woodridge high (1972) and Harris Fields State primary (1975). Woodridge's population went from 1482 in 1966 to 18,381 in 1986, and the growth in numbers led to the Logan Central drive-in shopping centre (1978) on the border between Woodridge and Kingston.

Until 2005 Logan Central was a small precinct comprising Logan Gardens and the civic centre, but it was enlarged, subtracting from Woodridge the drive-in shopping areas, the Woodridge railway station area and the Woodridge schools precinct.

Woodridge's census populations have been: