City Information

Why was it called the Gold Coast?
In the late 1940s, Brisbane journalists called the coast, south of Brisbane, 'the Gold Coast" - it was the place to buy and sell land in the postwar real estate boom. The local council thought that it was a good promotional name and on the 23rd October 1958, the South Coast Town Council adopted the name Gold Coast Town Council. Officially the Queensland State Government proclaimed the Local Authority of the City of the Gold Coast on May 16th 1959. The Place Names Board of Queensland officially gazetted the place name in April 1980.

Before European Settlement:
The modern City of the Gold Coast is bounded to the east by the sea, stretches from Beenleigh in the north, then south to the New South Wales border and west to the coastal mountains. Before European settlement, the Gold Coast and hinterland was a natural area of timbered mountains and hills, river valleys, floodplain, salt and freshwater wetlands. Low sand hills and long white beaches marked the place where the land finally met the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The land, rivers, the sea, the flora and fauna all formed the home of the Yugambeh people. They lived as family clans generally in the river valleys and estuaries of the region. The Yugambeh named localities and early European surveyors and settlers documented these place names. Some of these place names such as Nerang, Coombahbah and Eagleby are familiar today. Much has changed, but descendants of the Aboriginal people still live on the Gold Coast.

Timber, Cattle & Farms:
The first Europeans visiting the area for any extended period, were timber getters looking for valuable cedar to cut and ship south to the developing city of Sydney or north to the convict settlement of Brisbane. When the convict settlement closed and the population of Brisbane settlers grew, the first large cattle stations were established in the river valleys of the future Gold Coast. Eventually these properties were divided into smaller sugar and cotton farms, later dairy farms. The first township in the region, Nerang, was surveyed in 1865.

Seaside Resort:
At first, no one was interested in the fine surf beaches of the region. It was not good agricultural land and only poor timber grew there. By the end of the 19th Century, though, Brisbane people wanted to escape the summer heat, travel down the waterways of Moreton Bay by boat and spend time at the seaside. A Governor of Queensland, Governor Musgrave, built a seaside home near Southport in 1885, setting a trend for the Coast becoming a fashionable resort for the wealthy and influential.

Travelling to the Coast:
People would travel in horse and coach along bush tracks, crossing the rivers by ferry and then ride along the beach at low tide. In 1889, a train line was extended from Brisbane to Southport, later extending down to Coolangatta. A number of guesthouses and hotels were built at scenic spots along the beach.

Motor cars and a coast road:
The railway had brought many visitors to the region either to live permanently or as visitors, but motor cars and road access would change the pace of life here forever. A new coastal road, linking Brisbane to the beaches of the Coast was completed in 1925. In 1925, Jim Cavill built the Surfers Paradise Hotel near a beautiful surf beach.. In 1933, the town which had grown up around the hotel was named 'Surfers Paradise'. Motor cars brought more people to the coast and the string of small beach towns formed stretching from Labrador to Coolangatta.

The 1940s:
These seaside towns became well-known to the thousands of Australian and US armed servicemen who came for recreational leave during the Second World War. In 1949, all the beach towns along the coast were joined to become the Town of the Gold Coast under one local town council. While the name was used to describe a real estate boom, it also represented the golden sand, sunshine and the healthy living for which the area was famous.

In the 1950s:
Development increased rapidly. Serviced holiday apartments and shopping arcades were built. The canal Estates of Paradise Island, Chevron Island and Isle of Capri were some of the first modern major land developments. The first high rise on the Gold Coast , Kinkabool, was built in 1959 at Surfers Paradise. In 1995, the Gold Coast was amalgamated with the hinterland and northern areas of the Albert Shire Council to form today's City of the Gold Coast.