“Those of the makers of Rosewood district who remain, a few pioneers in their late seventies and eighties, are justly proud of the results of their labour. They have made from a wilderness of scrub and forest, hundreds of fertile farms that now support easily a population of 8,000 to 9,000. the old men’s dreams have been realised, and the ambitions of their grandsons, little less grand, are warranted by the district’s agricultural and industrial potentialities.”
And so began an article written in July 1926 which took a sweeping view back through the years since the settlement of what was once known as the Rosewood Scrub and covered an area ranging from Prenzlau, Tarampa, Minden, Marburg, Haigslea, Fernvale, Lowood, Tallegalla, Rosewood and Mt Marrow.
The writer of this story had interviewed “a dozen or more persons in Rosewood town today who remember bridle tracks through the bush as its only thoroughfares and bullock wagons practically its only vehicles”.
He spoke with these “persons” at the 1926 Rosewood Show, he told his readers.
“At the Rosewood Agricultural and Horticultural Association’s Show, the crowd will be about 2,000 and scores of motor cars.
“This is but one of three big agricultural shows which annually display the district’s wonderful fertility and amazing variety of its products.
“The population of the Rosewood Shire, which only covers a portion of the district, is 6,500 and the town, which only 60 years ago was a gatehouse on the main railway line, has 2,500 inhabitants.
“Most of the district was heavy scrub country before its settlement and the rest was fairly open timber country.”
He continued by noting that back then, there were few white settlers and much of the land was held by the owners or lease holders of the big pastoral runs.
“Big areas were later taken up for timber purposes and at about the same time many parts of the district were thrown open for selection for small area farming.
“A remarkable feature of this early settlement was the formation of almost purely national communities.
“The Scots started the Fernvale district settlement in the dairying community of the Wivenhoe Pocket. The Germans opened up Kirkheim (Haigslea), Glamorgan Vale and most of the Marburg locality. Englishmen formed the first Rosewood community. Irish settlers were the pioneers of Mount Walker and Rosevale and the Danes followed soon after.
“In most cases the original selections are still held by the same families.”
