History of Cabarlah

Cabarlah is a rural village on the New England Highway 18 km north of Toowoomba, situated in the Geham Parish of Aubingy County. The suburb of Cabarlah has an approximate area of 20 km². It is surrounded by the suburbs of Fifteen Mile to the north east, Geham to the north, Highfields to the south, Kleinton to the west, and Murphys Creek and Spring Bluff to the south east[1]

The original Aboriginals of the district were probably the Jarowair. Neighbours of the Jarowair people included Waka Waka, Giabel, Jagara, Barunggam, Kaiabara, Kabi-Kabi, Undanbi and Batjala (Geham SS 1996). (see maps below). In the 1880's or 1890's Captain Blaney, a governor of the Toowoomba jail retired and built a house he called Wirra Wirra House. This, it was said, was named after a tribe of Aboriginals whose habitat extended from near Cabarlah to Hodgson’s Creek[2].

The Toowoomba Regional Council (2019) state that "The Jagara people were of the foothills and escarpment, Giabal were of the Toowoomba area and the Jarowair were of the northern areas towards and including the Bunya Mountains (Booburrgan Ngmmunge meaning our mother's breasts[3]).

A 2017 thesis by Deborah Swan (Bunya Tukka Tracks) showed that there is evidence of many trade lines in Southern Queensland to the Bunyas and coastal New South Wales (see map reproduced by Swan)

The Darling Downs was originally known as the 'upland area' and indigenous people of this area used a technique in hunting food where they would burn the grasslands as the new, green sprouts attracted animals. This earned them the name "Gooneburra", or, "the ones who hunt with fire" by the coastal tribes." [4]

The Gummingurru stone arrangement at Gowrie Junction (Jarowair people) , is one of Australia's most important historical Aboriginal sites and estimated to be around 4000 years old. This site is an Aboriginal Bora, or ceremonial, site and was used as a men’s initiation site. It was also a site where different tribal groups met on their way to the Bunya Nut Festival.

In the late 19th century Gumminggurru was still being used for ceremonies and male initiation, but by the early 20th century most of the Aboriginal people of the Darling Downs had been removed from local properties and into the towns. [5] 

From the 1850's the settlement at around Toowoomba grew rapidly. There was a strong demand for timber, and timber mills spread north along the Highfields Range. From the 1860’s to 1883 the area was called Five-Mile Camp within a larger area of Highfields. It may have also included the area of Geham. From 1883-1885 the Divisional Board office was listed, by the Post Office Records as at being at “Five Mile, Highfields”. It is thought that the name Cabarlah derived from an Aboriginal expression describing the ring-tailed possum[6] . A 1930 article has it as a “Native name of the mountains in the neighbourhood”[7]

The Queensland Railway guide has Cabarlah  as a Wakka name for the black opossum[8]. A 1944 letter to the Railway has this version as well. 

The name Highfields (or Highfield) was probably named after a Highfields pastoral run, north of the township[9]. The name Highfleld/s does not appear in the newspapers until 1864.

The article on 16 March 1865 suggests very little development before 1864 in the Highfields district (which included Cabarlah). In 1860 the land around Cabarlah was gazetted the Royal Agricultural Reserve. Townships grew to service the timber mill workers in the 1860’s. The names Cabarlah, Geham, Pechey, Perseverance, Pipeclay, Ravensbourne and Hampton came later (1870’s to the 1880’s).[10]

The article to the right describes Highfields and its extent in 1865 from Stony Pinch (just outside Toowoomba, current Mt Kynoch) to Perkin's Hotel at the first sawmill near Geham. Early settlers would have included Sondergeld, Wilkes, Bishop, and Larkin.