Sugar cane to beach lounging tourists…Coolum has come of age
Coolum is now established as a popular seaside resort town on the southern Sunshine Coast in Queensland but it does not have a long history. It now has a population of 18,000 and is still growing, being 135 km north of Brisbane and 15km south of Noosa, it’s local demographic commutes to Maroochydore,Mooloolaba and Noosa for work as well as working in the growing local business community. Coolum has a reputation for good food, lively bars and more than anything a golf touranment that brings some of the best golfers in the world to town every year, the australian PGA Championship takes place at the Hyatt resort on the edge of town. Coolum has always had a reputation for big waves on their surf beaches.
The name is said to have come from the Aboriginal word “gulum” or “kulum” which means “blunt” or “headless”. It refers to the unusual form of mount coolum. According to legend, Ninderry knocked off Coolum’s head, and it fell into the ocean. Today, the island of Mudjimba is said to be that head that fell off. Mount Coolum is a volcanic plug, it measures 681 feet high, it rises from the coastal plain and a part of its base projects into the ocean which is called Point Arkwright. Historically a clan known as the Inabara claimed ownership of Coolum. They are a part of the Undanbi tribe of the Aboriginal people. The Kabi Kabi is a larger tribe that the Undanbi belonged to. However, the clans slowly dwindled in numbers when the Europeans started settling there.
In 1823, there were European castaways that passed through Coolum, sailors from a shipwreck. The first person to record a visit to the area was in 1871, a gentleman who ran 300 head of cattle there. Soon after an englishman took 252 hectares of land, his name was Mark Blasdall, he planted sugarcane and started to create a timber business. He then constructed a commercial timber mill along with two dwellings by flattening Coolum Creek clearing the path for the boats to access his depot to deliver and pick up wood.
William Perry was the initial permanent resident of Coolum in 1905. His house, named Green hills, was built where Key West Avenue meets Beach Road. It was not long before plenty of people started to move to the area to live.In 1909 a steamboat started to deliver mail to the maroochy district. The connection between Yandina and Coolum became established through this, though locally the establishment of the North coast railway in 1891 to Yandina had taken away a lot of steamboat transportation
Road access was still a problem but a road to Coolum was undertaken in 1922-1925 and it opened access for vehicles from Yandina. Later on, a large amount of expansion of sugarcane began in Coolum and many new farms were taken up.
