Yuleba

Yuleba, a rural town on the Warrego Highway, is 370 km north-west of Brisbane and about mid way between Roma and Miles. Pronounced 'Yool-bah', it is on the Ulebah (now Yuleba) Creek.

There have been various other spellings: Yulebar pastoral run (1850), Yeulba and Yulebah, and the second version was officially used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In any event, it is thought that the name was derived from an Aboriginal word referring to water lilies.

The first Yuleba village was about 5 km south of the present town, but the extension of the railway line in 1879 resulted in a new settlement (Baltinglas). Yuleba village was soon 'transferred' to the railway site. A school was opened in 1884. Yuleba was a transport interchange centre for Cobb and Co coaches, which ran a service to St George and Surat. Consequently, upwards of four hotels traded at Yuleba in the late 1870s, along with several stores, butchers and blacksmiths. Cobb and Co's last Australian coach run was from Yuleba to Surat in 1924.

Yuleba (Yeulba) was described in 1903 in the Australian handbook:

In 1911 a local shire, Bendemere, was created, and despite some resistance from nearby Wallumbilla, Yuleba was chosen as the shire's administrative centre. It did not get everything its own way, however, as the district hospital and showground were placed at Wallumbilla. In the early 1920s Yuleba had a population of about 400 people, and by 2001 the number had halved. At the mid point of that period, though, Yuleba had 330 people and an estimated 200 buildings, including the shire's offices, an RSL hall with weekly pictures, a reticulated water supply, three churches, two general stores and two sawmills.

Although large stands of cypress pine remain in the area, the last sawmill has been moved to Miles. There are a golf club, a hotel/motel, a general store and a primary school. It has the former Bendemere Shire offices.

Yuleba's census populations have been: