Pomona, a rural town on the North Coast railway line is 125 km north of central Brisbane and 25 km inland from Noosa Heads.
When the North Coast railway was opened in 1891 a railway siding named Pinbarren was placed at the future Pomona township. The Pinbarren school was opened in 1897, but local opinion wanted a different name for the township allotments soon to be auctioned. Considering that local soil and climate were suited to fruit growing, the name of the Roman goddess of fruit, Pomona was proposed and agreed to by government authorities in 1900. Pinbarren is now the name of an adjoining rural/residential locality north of Pomona.
Beginning as a timber and dairying town in the 1890s, Pomona was the largest town in the Noosa Shire when it was created by severance from Widgee Shire in 1910. Accordingly, it became Noosa Shire's administrative centre until 1980 when the shire offices were moved to Tewantin. Another distinction was the opening of a picture theatre (c1921), which continued into the twenty-first century as the Majestic. Another indication of Pomona's past importance was its retention of the court house for the Noosa area until 1987.
Critics of the uncontrolled urbanisation of Noosa Heads trace its cause to the rural-based councillors at Pomona being content to exploit development as a cash cow for council rates. The defeat of those interests in the 1990s and transfer of the council offices to Noosa seemed to allow Pomona to regain its rural perspective, attracting new residents who prefer its pace of life. Pomona has a primary school, Cooroora secondary college (2000), a show-ground, a hotel, a caravan park, a bowls club, rural businesses and shops, a cinema and the Noosa Shire museum. The Cooroora Masonic Lodge (1923), a notable building with elaborate interior murals, is listed on the Queensland heritage register, as is the court house. Overlooking the town is the prominent Mount Cooroora (438m, the site of an annual King of the Mountain race). Pomona's census populations have been:
Census Date | Population |
---|---|
1911 | 450 |
1921 | 661 |
1976 | 610 |
1986 | 800 |
2001 | 956 |
2006 | 2009 |
2011 | 2587 |
Aline Gillespie, Pomona: the historical centre of the Noosa Shire, Pomona, Cooroora Historical Society Inc., booklets, 2000