QLDFarming
Pimpama
Cotton, then sugar, then arrowroot, beside the coach road south.
1863Cotton planted on the river
WHAT STARTED IT
Rich river flats drew the Victoria Cotton and Sugar Plantation Company to the Pimpama River in about 1863, when the American Civil War cut cotton supplies. A village grew where the South Coast track crossed Hotham Creek, with a store, a hotel and a school.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Sugar soon replaced cotton, and when sugar growing moved north, farmers turned to arrowroot, which the district’s mild frosts suited. Cobb & Co coaches stopped at the Pimpama Hotel, the railway arrived in 1889, and dairying took over in the 1920s and 1930s.
TURNING POINTS
1863Cotton is planted on the south bank of the Pimpama River.
1870Cobb & Co’s coach from Brisbane runs to Pimpama.
1872Pimpama State School opens.
1880William Doherty, once a ploughman on Bauer’s sugar plantation, begins growing arrowroot on a large scale.
1889The South Coast railway opens with a stopping place at Pimpama.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
Long a rural wedge between Ormeau and Coomera, Pimpama is now one of Queensland’s fastest-growing suburbs, with about 24,600 people in 2021.