Goodna’s story stretches back tens of thousands of years on Yagara country, through colonial exploration in the 1820s, the proclamation of a village in 1856, and into the multicultural suburb you’ll find today. Here’s how it all unfolded.
Long before any colonial map called this place ‘Woogaroo’ or ‘Goodna’, it was — and remains — Yagara country. The Yerongpan people lived along this stretch of the Brisbane River, fishing, gathering, and travelling the same waterways that would later carry paddle steamers and bullock-team timber. We acknowledge the Yagara people as the Traditional Owners and pay respect to Elders past, present and emerging.
From Woogaroo to Goodna
The first European to record this stretch of river was John Oxley, who explored the Brisbane River as far upstream as Goodna in 1824. The next year Edmund Lockyer followed. By 1826, Commandant Patrick Logan was quarrying the local sandstone — part of what geologists now call the Woogaroo Subgroup — for buildings downstream.
By 1841, a sheep run called Woogaroo Station, owned by the Grenier family, was operating on these riverbanks. Stephen Simpson, the lands commissioner for the Moreton Bay district, was farming a slab hut near the mouth of Woogaroo Creek. In 1851–52 he bought 2,000 acres including land on Wolston Creek — and built the homestead known as Wolston House, now a National Trust heritage-listed building.
In 1856, while Queensland was still part of New South Wales, the village site was officially proclaimed. It was first known as Woogaroo, after the creek. The name Goodna superseded it in 1865 — apparently from the Yagara word guna, meaning ‘dung’. An unfortunate misunderstanding in language seems to be responsible for this name, though it stuck and the suburb has long since made it its own.
Key moments in Goodna’s history
Heritage that remains
Several buildings and sites still carry the story of Goodna’s early decades. Most prominent is St Francis Xavier Catholic Church, built from locally quarried sandstone and designed by Andrea Stombuco. The church became the nucleus of a new village pulled away from the flood-prone river bank. Adjoining it are the former Sisters of Mercy Convent (1911) and the primary school (1910).
The Diggers Rest War Memorial at the corner of Queen and Church Streets was dedicated in September 1921. Penhelyg, a Queenslander house in William Street, was built in 1896. And the Hotel Cecil — formerly the Royal Mail Hotel — sits where Joseph Broad built his first store in 1857. Many of the established jacarandas, hoop pines, poincianas and mango trees scattered through the suburb are well over 100 years old.
Want to dig deeper?
Picture Ipswich and the State Library of Queensland both hold extensive photographic and documentary collections about Goodna’s history — including the 1883 photograph of the Law family’s house in Brisbane Terrace, with Law’s blacksmith shop alongside it.
These iconic trees were planted back in 1932 by work gangs during the Great Depression. They’ve stood strong through floods, heatwaves and change — a living symbol of Goodna’s resilience.
Goodna today
From a sheep station in 1841 to a Major Activity Centre in the SEQ Plan of the 2020s, Goodna has reinvented itself many times. What hasn’t changed is the river, the jacarandas, and the sense — still strong on a quiet Sunday afternoon — that this is a community that knows itself.