| Laidley Queensland |
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Laidley
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| Population: | 2,858 (2006)[1] | ||||||||||||
| Postcode: | 4341 | ||||||||||||
| Location: | |||||||||||||
| LGA: | Lockyer Valley Region | ||||||||||||
| County: | Churchill | ||||||||||||
| Parish: | Laidley | ||||||||||||
| State District: | Lockyer | ||||||||||||
| Federal Division: | Blair | ||||||||||||
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Laidley is a town (pop. 2,858) situated in the Lockyer Valley of South East Queensland, Australia. The township lies 83 km west of Brisbane, the state capital.
The local industry has been dominated by agriculture since the end of the 19th century. Laidley has long regarded itself as "Queensland's Country Garden".[2] Fruit and vegetable production features prominently, with the majority of beetroot grown in Australia coming from the Laidley district.
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Allan Cunningham first explored the area in 1829. Cunningham named it Laidley's Plain after the Deputy Commissary General of the colony of New South Wales.[3]
The town developed around a wagon stop on the main road route between Ipswich and Toowoomba. A stop was needed after the climb over the small Little Liverpool Range west of Marburg.[3]
By the 1850s the area was being cleared for sheep grazing.[3] In the mid 1870s the railway line from Grandchester stopped at a railway station 1.5 km north of the town.[3]
Between 1911 and 1955, a branch railway line ran from Laidley along the Laidley Creek to the settlement at Mulgowie.[4]
The town was the centre of the Shire of Laidley, a former local government area.