QLDRail & telegraph
Woombye
Halfway to the Gympie goldfield, Cobb & Co’s overnight camp.
1868Cobb & Co staging camp opens
WHAT STARTED IT
After gold was found at Gympie, a road from Brisbane to the goldfield was finished in 1868. Cobb & Co set up a staging depot halfway along it, Middle Camp, with the only passenger accommodation on the route.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Known as Cobb’s Camp, the place took the name Woombye in the late 1880s, and a township was surveyed about 1890, just before the North Coast railway arrived in 1891. Pineapples, citrus, strawberries and bananas then made Woombye a fruit-growing centre, with a sawmill supplying packing cases.
TURNING POINTS
1868Cobb & Co coaches start running from Brisbane to Gympie, stopping at Middle Camp.
1888‘Woombye (Cobb’s Camp)’ is appointed a place for holding courts of petty sessions.
1891The North Coast railway opens from Landsborough to Yandina through Woombye.
1895Thomas Davey grows Woombye’s first commercial pineapples.
1971The Big Pineapple opens.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A small hinterland town of about 3,900 people just south of Nambour. The Big Pineapple, opened in 1971, recalls its fruit-growing past.