Yatala

Arthur Dixon, an official in the Union Bank, came to the area in 1868 from Yatala in South Australia. He purchased a block of scrub land on the Albert River from a Captain Thomas  Smales. Smales had operated a ferry here in the 1860s, but later moved to Cabbage Tree Point on the edge of Moreton Bay.

Arthur Dixon  named the property Yatala after its South Australian namesake. So it is in its origins an Aboriginal word meaning 'swampy', but the name relates to  an area near Adelaide.

Yatala is located about 3 kilometres south of Beenleigh. In the days of the large sugar plantations, Yatala was the mail and business centre  for  the immediate area. 

In 1871, Thomas Hanlon built his hotel here on a site that was located on the coach route to Nerang and near a wharf site for the local steamers travelling up and down the Albert River. On the banks of the Albert River, William Witty named his plantation and sugar mill Yatala.

On the Albert River, just downstream  from Yatala,  is the Beenleigh Rum Distillery. The distillery was  legally founded in 1884 and  is today,  Australia’s oldest registered distillery.

By the early 20th century, the sugar plantations were cut up into smaller farming blocks. The village of Yatala, halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, captured passing food trade with a hotel, pie shop and fish shop. In 1965, the Pacific Highway bypassed the area.

However, despite fluctuations in business activity, by the 1980s,  Yatala  continued to develop as a commercial and light industrial area.

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