Allora, Queensland

Allora is a town and locality in south-eastern Queensland, Australia, on the Darling Downs 158km south-west of the state capital, Brisbane. The town is in the Southern Downs Region. The township is located on the New England Highway between Warwick and Toowoomba. At the, Allora had a population of 889.HistoryThe region surrounding this small farming community was first explored by Europeans in the 1840s; the town was surveyed in 1859. Its name is believed to derive from an Aboriginal word "gnarrallah", meaning waterhole or swampy place.Following European settlement, the history of the area is entwined with two famous pastoral homesteads in the vicinity of Allora: Glengallan and Talgai. Both properties ran sheep.The original "Talgai" run was taken up by E. E. Dalrymple in 1840. The creek that runs through Allora is named in his honour. Built in 1868 for the Clark family, Talgai Homestead stood on 300,000 acres (1,200 km²). The homestead is built of sandstone and covers sixty squares. It is now a bed and breakfast.Allora Post Office opened on 31 March 1863.The Allora State School opened on 1 May 1867. On 31 December 2008, it was renamed Allora P-10 State School.From the 1870s, red cedar, pine and beech logged from the Goomburra valley were milled at Allora.