Eudlo

Eudlo Creek was a crossing on the Brisbane to Gympie road built in 1868, and a small bridge was built in the early 1870s. Closer settlement did not begin, however, until the late 1880s, when public interest in available land was piqued by the Government proposal for the North Coast Railway. There were a small number of farmers living at Eudlo Creek by the end of the 1880s and much of the present-day town of Eudlo and its surrounds was owned by David Mackay (purchased in 1887). The Queensland Government resumed a portion of Mackay’s land to construct the railway, but the Government only proposed a small station and did not survey a town.

The Eudlo railway station, on the North Coast Railway, was opened in 1891 and more selectors took up land as a result. Selectors established fruit and dairy farms, or cut timber. A community hall was built at Eudlo in 1895, but it was converted into a provisional school in 1896.

The town of Eudlo did not develop until the 1910s. Mackay subdivided a large portion of his property in 1908 and sold it to Dr Philip Corlis, who established a sawmill (which later became Olsen’s Sawmill) and surveyed a town site near the mill. The town allotments were auctioned in Eudlo in 1913. By 1915, a number of houses had been built and there were two general stores. A public hall was built in 1918.