Logan City

Okay, so I'm here in Logan City, and it's pretty interesting how this place is situated. It's right in the south of Greater Brisbane, kind of a buffer between Brisbane to the north and the Gold Coast to the south. It also borders a few other areas like Scenic Rim, Ipswich, and Redland City. This whole area is divided into 70 suburbs, and they elect a councillor for each of its 12 divisions. Back in 2018, there were around 326,615 people here, and by 2021, that number had grown to over 345,000.

The city got a lot bigger in 2008 when parts of the Albert and Beaudesert Shires were combined into it. You can see it stretches quite a bit, from Priestdale in the north down to Mundoolun near the Albert River in the south, and east to Carbrook at the Logan River, then west to Lyons. It’s also spread across parts of the Oxley Creek sub-basin, and the Logan and Albert Rivers. If you want to see some of the prominent bushland, the Daisy Hill Koala Centre is a good example, kind of like Karawatha Forest or the Tamborine and Venman Bushland National Parks that are nearby.

The name "Logan" comes from Captain Patrick Logan, who also gave his name to the river. You'll find commercial hubs here like Logan Central, the Logan Hyperdome in Shailer Park, and Browns Plains. Other busy suburbs include Beenleigh, Rochedale South, Meadowbrook, Springwood, Woodridge, Eagleby, and even rural towns like Jimboomba and Logan Village. It's a key transport route between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, with a pretty extensive motorway network. The Logan Motorway connects to the Pacific Motorway in the northeast, and the Mount Lindesay Highway and Sydney–Brisbane rail corridor run right through the city. There's a lot of new development happening, especially in Yarrabilba and Greater Flagstone. Griffith University even has a campus in Meadowbrook, which is becoming a specialist area for health, research, and education.

Historically, this land belongs to the Yugembah people. Captain Patrick Logan, the commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, discovered the Logan River in 1826. He noted it was great for large ships and accessing fertile land. He named the area Darling, but the governor renamed the river after him. Timber was a big industry here early on, with the Logan River used for rafting logs. After the penal settlement closed in 1841, squatters moved in, and land leases started in 1849. German immigrants also arrived from 1864, drawn by the chance to own their own farms.

They even had a cotton gin at Loganholme in 1867, which was later converted to a sugar mill. Cotton didn’t last long, but sugar became a staple industry by the 1870s. However, tough times came with a severe frost in 1885 and a catastrophic flood in 1887. The railway opened in 1888, which eventually led to the end of Cobb and Co services here. More recently, there was the 1974 Brisbane flood, a water slide park in 1982 that became the Logan Hyperdome in 1989, and Logan Hospital started construction in 1989. In 2011, there was a tragic house fire in Slacks Creek. And in 2017, a water treatment plant at Round Mountain became the first in Australia to be entirely off-grid.

The city of Logan itself was officially formed on May