History
The district was first explored by Allan Cunningham in 1827. Cunningham's Gap was named after him. Agriculture was established in the region during the 1860s. During the following decade, mining of gold, copper and tin brought permanent European settlement to the district.
In 1881 the railway to Warwick was extended to Stanthorpe and then to the border in 1887, when Wallangarra was established.
The countryside around the Granite Belt, after World War I, was given to some returning soldiers as gifts or payment for their services in the war. As such, many of the rural districts are named after battles that took place in France, such as Amiens and Pozieres. These places were, at one point, rather busy and well-populated, but as Stanthorpe grew and returned soldiers grew frustrated with farming, the districts eventually died as many families left. In some places, where there were once Blue Nurse outposts and many stores, all that remain are small primary schools, while in other districts the post-war past remains only in the name.
Read more about this topic: Granite Belt
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“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)