Deep in Brisbane’s southwest is Jindalee, a name that would have meant nothing to the area’s Yuggera first inhabitants.
Jindalee – ‘bare hills’ – is said by official histories to have been imported from a NSW Indigenous language, ‘origin unknown’.
Sleuthing by BrisbaneNow researchers, points to the Ngunawal folk of southern NSW, who passed on to colonists their description of an unusually sparse hill –`got no skin on your bones’.
Perth also has a suburb called Jindalee.
In terms of Brisbane suburbs, Jindalee is a relative new kid in town.
At the time of its inception from 1959, ‘hooker’ referred to the Hooker Corporation, the driving force behind Centenary Estates, so named 100 years after Queensland was proclaimed as a state.
Old timers still snigger over billboards welcoming visitors to ‘Hooker country’.
Centenary Estates Ltd boasted former Prime Minister and Treasurer Sir Arthur ‘Call me Artie’ Fadden as its chair as the suburbs took off.
The Centenary Bridge opened in 1964, a primary school came two years later and by 1969 the booming area was reached along the Centenary Highway.
