Flagstone Creek

History

In 1840, the penal colony at Moreton Bay was being prepared to be turned into a free settlement (which ultimately became the city of Brisbane). As there was settlement already occurring on the Darling Downs, there was a need for Lieutenant Owen Gorman, the last commandant of the penal colony, to find a wagon route between the two locations, but the obstacle was the mountains of the Great Dividing Range. There was a route already known at Cunninghams Gap but it was not able to be used by a wagon. A convict John Sterry Baker had escaped from the penal colony in 1826 and had lived among the Goomburra Aboriginal people in the Lockyer Valley area and walked with them on a track to the top of the range. Having returned to the penal colony in 1840, Baker told Gorman of the track up the range and modified an Irish jaunting car to test as a wagon on the route. Together Gorman and Baker ascended the range with their wagon on 17 October 1840 arriving at Eton Vale. Despite the fact that Gorman did not discover the route, it nonetheless became known as Gorman's Gap Road. The route which runs between Upper Flagstone in the west and Flagstone Creek in the east was marked by blazing a line of trees. It became the first gazetted road in Queensland. Today, the road no longer officially exists and is overgrown but can still be followed. There are three monuments along the route, one at each end and the other along the route at Camel's Hump where Gorman took his compass bearing. Flagstone Creek Provisional School opened on 18 January 1886, becoming Flagstone State School in 1904. Mount Campbell Provisional School opened on 26 October 1891. On 1 January 1909, it became Mount Campbell State School. It closed on 13 March 1960 but reopened on 30 January 1968. It closed permanently on 31…

Geography

Flagstone Creek (the watercourse) flows through from west to north-east.

Most-observed species

• Noisy Miner

  Manorina melanocephala (Latham, 1801) · Aves
  4,054
• Australian Magpie

  Gymnorhina tibicen (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  3,390
• Rainbow Lorikeet

  Trichoglossus haematodus (Linnaeus, 1771) · Aves
  3,340
• Lewin's Honeyeater

  Meliphaga lewinii (Swainson, 1837) · Aves
  3,316
• Torresian Crow

  Corvus orru Bonaparte, 1850 · Aves
  3,230
• Eastern Whipbird

  Psophodes olivaceus (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  2,948
• Laughing Kookaburra

  Dacelo novaeguineae (Hermann, 1783) · Aves
  2,851
• Pied Currawong

  Strepera graculina (Shaw, 1790) · Aves
  2,805