Capalaba ( kə-PAL-ə-bah) is an urban locality in the City of Redland, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, Capalaba had a population of 18,002 people.
The name of Capalaba is believed to be derived from the Indigenous Yugarabul word for the ringtail possum, a marsupial native to the area.
European settlement began in the 1850s, led by farmers, lumberjacks, and sawmill operators.
The town of Tingalpa (27°31′03″S 153°10′54″E / 27.5174°S 153.1816°E) was surveyed in 1863 with the name of the town changed to Capalaba in 1927. The town was on the western side of the creek (now in the suburb of Chandler). The town was close to a ford of Tingalpa Creek known as The Rocks Crossing (27°31′07″S 153°11′18″E / 27.5185°S 153.1882°E) which had been identified by surveyor James Warner in 1850. The ford formed part of the route from Brisbane to Cleveland until 1874 when a bridge was built over the creek along Old Cleveland Road (27°31′10″S 153°11′12″E / 27.5195°S 153.1867°E).
In the early days, the community was split into three settlements known as The Rocks, the Sawmills, and Upper Tingalpa. Although a school was desired, it was difficult to agree on the settlement at which it would be established. Tingalpa Bridge Provisional School opened on 30 July 1874 in a wooden shed. This school closed and then Tingalpa Upper Provisional School opened. Believing that the number of children in the district justified the establishment of a state school, a public meeting was held on 29 March 1879 to formally apply for a state school. The application was approved but the issue of the location continued to be argued. Finally the issue was resolved with the selection of a 30-acre (12 ha) site on Mount Cotton Road, now 5A-51 School Road (27°32′09″S 153°11′25″E / 27.5357°S 153.1904°E), which was equally distant (about 1.5 miles (2.4 km)) from all three settlements. On 5 July 1880 Capalaba State School (Capalaba being the informal name for the district) opened with 22 students, rising to 43 students by 1884. However, student numbers fell when the sawmills closed and the opening of the Cleveland railway line in 1889 meant Capalaba was not longer on the main route to Cleveland which further depressed the district's economy. In 1912 the teachers' residence at the school burned down. In 1922 the school was declared closed and its school building was to be relocated, but pressure from the local residents resulted in the school reopening in 1924. The population in the district increased during the Great Depression in the 1930s as people moved to Capalaba from Brisbane to find cheaper housing, enabling the school to have a sufficient enrolment to maintain the school. In 2005 it merged with adjacent Capalaba State High School to create Capalaba State College, using the combined sites.
The town was originally officially known as Tingalpa, presumably taking its name from the creek, this caused confusion due to the existence of another area of the same name and so in 1927 the town's name was officially changed to Capalaba (the name in common use).
In July 1925, local Methodists began to raise funds to build a church. By 1975 a Methodist church had been established in Ney Road.
The first drive-in movie theatre in Queensland opened at Capalaba in December 1955 at the corner of Redland Bay Road and Mount Cotton Road (27°31′20″S 153°11′25″E / 27.5223°S 153.1902°E). In 1979 it was closed to make way for the construction of the Capalaba Park Shopping Centre. The drive-in was re-established in 1980 at 188-216 Redland Bay Road (behind the ten-pin bowling alley, 27°31′53″S 153°12′23″E / 27.5314°S 153.2063°E). The drive-in closed in 1997.
The construction of the Leslie Harrison Dam (completed in 1968) created a major source of freshwater for the then Redland Shire in the 1960s. This led to considerable growth in residential, commercial and industrial land during the 1970s in this former rural area. Continued urban growth led to the district being split becoming two suburbs on either side of Tingalpa Creek with the suburb of Capalaba in Redland Shire (to the east of the creek) and the suburb of Capalaba West (now Chandler, 27°30′54″S 153°10′44″E / 27.515°S 153.179°E) in the City of Brisbane (to the west of the creek).
Capalaba State High School opened on 24 January 1978 on a 20-acre (8.1 ha) site immediately east of the Capalaba State School at 53–59 School Road (27°32′10″S 153°11′46″E / 27.5361°S 153.1960°E). In 2005 the two schools merged to create Capalaba State College, occupying the combined sites.
Capalaba Park Shopping Centre opened to the public in 1981 on the site of Queensland's first drive-in theatre. The theatre was originally relocated to a new site behind the shopping centre, but then closed entirely in 1997 following an expansion of the centre to include new cinemas. FPDSavills' Byvan division gave the centre its "Shopping Centre of the Year Award" in 2002.
Coolnwynpin State School opened on 23 January 1984.
St Luke's Catholic Parish School opened in January 1989 with 11 staff and 95 students under the leadership of Sister Lynne Albury, the school's first principal.
Capalaba Library opened in 1996.
Capalaba West was a related suburb located on the opposite side of Tingalpa Creek, and was part of the City of Brisbane rather than the Redlands. It retained the Capalaba West name until 2010, when it became incorporated into the Brisbane suburb of Chandler.
In the 2011 census, the population of Capalaba was 16,644.
In the 2016 census, the population of Capalaba was 17,333 of whom 50.4% were female and 49.6% were male. The median age of the Capalaba population was 37 years old, 1 year below the national median of 38 years old. 74.4% of people living in Capalaba were born in Australia. The other top responses for country of birth were New Zealand (6.6%), England (4.4%), South Africa (1.0%), the Philippines (1.0%), and India (0.9%). 87.7% of people speak English as their first language; the next most common languages were Mandarin Chinese (0.6%), Hindi, Tagalog, Italian, and Greek (all 0.5%).
In the 2021 census, Capalaba had a population of 18,002 people.
History info courtesy of Wikipedia
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