Though this photo, taken by Henry Gesler on 9th September 1934 is just over 85 years old, most old time residents of Boonah would recognise the view as down the hill towards the town on the Ipswich-Boonah Road before the housing began to expand to the north in the 1980s.
This reasonably steep slope towards the town today becomes Coronation Drive, but was known as long as locals can remember it as McCourt’s Hill.
Old Fassifern Guardian articles from the 1930s also informally apply the same surname to the famous old timber ‘white bridge’ over the Teviot at Dugandan, the forerunner of the present bridge, calling it – with good reason – McCourt’s Bridge. The 77 foot ironbark poles for that bridge came down from McCourt land on Mt French’s South Peak at Frenches Creek, on bullock wagons that included the three that belonged to McCourts. The bridge was situated close to one of the early McCourt stores at Dugandan.
It was a previous store of John McCourt, however, which gave the local name of McCourt’s Hill to the slope down into what would become Boonah - especially after the 1887 Dugandan flood which inundated the budding township there and gave impetus to the development of higher ground in Boonah.
Both the Fassifern Guardian and the Queensland Times mentioned the local name for McCourt’s Hill when John McCourt died on 26th July 1926 aged 79. The Queensland Times article is the most expansive, and says “One of the approaches to Boonah via Milbong and Coulson is known as McCourt’s Hill. It was at this place that he had conducted a general store, and which progressed until, with the advance of settlement, it was removed to Dugandan, where it had been a feature for upwards of 35 years.”
Several years ago now, Scenic Rim Regional Council officially declared the hill to bear the surname all locals knew it by anyway, calling it, if I remember rightly, McCourt Hill. I don’t think a sign has ever been erected to inform visitors of the pioneering family and their contribution to this district.
Exactly when the general store on this hill was established is unknown, but it is thought to have been around 1880. I don’t know where the McCourt family lived and what they did in the intervening time since, I understand, they immigrated from Ireland around 1876. The McCourts were definitely on the hill in 1881 when Coulson School, then called Teviotville, was built. The school would have been several kilometres from the McCourt Store, but would have still been the nearest school. The children would have walked there on a rough track, as the road was then. James McCourt appears on the list of the 1881 children, Annie and Mary Jane McCourt in 1883, and one other McCourt child in 1886. There were 11 McCourt children in all.
No one can be exactly sure, but the original McCourt Store is thought to have been situated just off the main track to Boonah, beside the location of the current Jehovah’s Witness worship centre. The late Selwyn Pfeffer once told me that when builders were excavating foundations for his and Lorna’s house, the machines unearthed a number of old bottles, which may have indicated the location of the old McCourt Store. In 1883 the name of J. McCourt, of Portion 109 Dugandan Rd, as that road would have been called then, appears on a residents’ list as a storekeeper, whose improvements to his holding are “a slab store, barn, and kitchen.” His name is not on the 1889 list, probably because the family had moved to Dugandan.
There is a report that in 1887 a brick kiln was established at Boonah “on top of McCourt’s Hill.” Apparently it didn’t last long because of the amount of standing timber and doubts about the suitability of the clay there.
A Fassifern Guardian article of 30 September 1931, spoke of two past deaths on McCourt’s Hill due to accident: James Hooper, ‘killed on McCourt’s Hill through falling from a horse, Feb 11, 1920, and William Wright, ‘badly hurt on McCourt’s Hill and died in Boonah Hospital about 9 years ago.’ (1922).
It is interesting to compare Henry Gesler’s 1934 photograph of the road descending McCourt’s Hill with the current scene. The road appears to be in basically the same place as today. Out of sight on the left of the photo today is The Outlook. Just a little further up the hill on the right the houses of Range View Acres Estate begin, including our own, developed in the early 1980s. Just back over the hill on the left is Boonah Valley Motel.
In the photo there is more eucalypt tree cover on either side of the road than now. There is no sign of Elliot Road at the bottom of the hill, branching off to go past Boonah Cemetery. In 1934 the fencing is different, the road is gravel, rutted, and black soiled and the telephone or power poles are on the opposite side of the road to now. There is no road or town signage. The Church of Christ buildings, or of course the new Retirement Village project, are missing, but there may just be a glimpse through the blue gums of the farm dam now relocated for The Village. And of course we can’t tell from the photo, but McCourt’s Hill is no longer the boundary to Boonah. McCourt’s General Store has disappeared as the housing advances into the old Dugandan Scrublands northwards.