Kilcoy, Queensland

A quiet rural centre which was made famous by reports of a mythical Yowie wandering about in the woods. Official statistics record over 3,000 sightings of Yowies throughout Australia between 1975 and 1979.
Location: 94 km north west of Brisbane via the D'Aguilar Highway; 50 km west of Caboolture; 125 m above sea level.
Origin of name: derived from the name of a pastoral run, the name first used in 1842 by pastoralists Sir Evan (1816-1883) Colin Mackenzie, after the Mackenzie's birthplace of Kilcoy in Rosshire, Scotland. Originally called Kilcoy, the township changed its name to Hopetoun 1892 (after Capt. Louis Hope (1817-1894) grazier, sugar miller and planter, who ran the Kilcoy pastoral property, 1858-94). It was then was changed back to Kilcoy 1906 because of confusion with similar place names in Victoria and Western Australia.
Brief history: Scottish migrants opened up the area in the early 1840s and cleared land to run beef and dairy cattle. In 1842 on the outskirts of Kilcoy Station, 30-60 Native Aborigines of the Kabi Kabi (or gubi gubi) died from eating flour laced with strychnine or arsenic. The Mackenzies were admonished for this mass killing by attorney-General John Hubert Plunkett (1802 - 1869), who threatened prosecution if an official complaint was lodged. Up until the early 1990s Evan Mackenzie was a prime suspect but recent research suggests that he himself was probably not responsible for the massacre, since he was in Sydney at the time. The property's English overseer disappeared upon Mackenzie returning. Mackenzie appears to have organised a conspiracy of silence to protect the Englishman.
Mackenzie sold the property in 1854 to Capt. Louis Hope who built the heritage listed Kilcoy Station Homestead. Timber felling and milling was also important in the early development of Kilcoy, which was founded in the 1890s.
Natural features: Yabba Creek; Conondale Range; Red Bluff; Sheep Station Creek; Conondale National Parks
Built features: Somerset Dam (1935); Jimna Fire Tower, Yednia Lookout; Yednia Sawmill and valley of. Murumba Lookout; township of Woodford (20 km east, hosts one of Australia's largest music festivals: the Woodford Folk Festival, held each year between 27th December and New Year's Day).
Heritage features: Kilcoy Station Homestead (6 km north-east, 1850s); The Australian Narrow Gauge Railway Museum Society