In 1852, the track meandering in from the bush towards the newly-minted village of Sandgate – then no more than a few sparsely settled allotments situated along the edge of Cabbage Tree Creek and Bramble Bay – was nameless. In a little over 10 years, though, the track had shed its anonymity and become Rainbow Street, and the swampy, mosquito-ridden pioneering settlement had transformed into a “rising and fashionable Watering-place” where land sales were booming.
By 1864, advertisements were designating Rainbow Street as the hamlet’s main thoroughfare, one excited seller going so far as to proclaim it “THE VERY CENTRE OF SANDGATE”, and property in the vicinity was in high demand. Most of the sites (“participating in the salubrious breezes of our Noble bay”) were sold for housing, either private residences or boarding establishments, to cater for “the press of visitors and health-seekers” arriving every holiday season.
Rainbow Street: A Hub of Early Sandgate Life
Hard on the heels of land speculation came business and trade, and the advent of the railway in 1882, with the terminus in Rainbow Street, guaranteed its place as Sandgate’s prime commercial locus. Several tradespeople operated there, among them Mr Hale’s grocery, Mr Tracey and Mr Quain, wheelwright and blacksmith respectively, Mr Hornung the plumber, Miss Monk’s day and boarding school for young ladies and the offices of the Moreton Mail newspaper.
One enterprise that the street lacked was a hotel, despite Mr James Hutchinson’s application in 1885 for a licence to build one at the junction of Curlew and Rainbow Streets. The licensing court refused the application “on the grounds that [the hotel] was unnecessary”. The Temperance Society, whose new premises were opened in the street the following year, would certainly have agreed.
Popular and busy it may have been, but as a roadway, it left something to be desired. Few meetings of the municipal council, established in 1880, passed without either complaint about Rainbow Street or reference to expenditure for its improvement. It was narrow, badly drained, poorly surfaced and ill-lit. Residents protested about flooding to their properties, and the medical officer regularly condemned the pools of standing water along the street as unsanitary.
Loutish behaviour was not uncommon, such as the “hoodlums” who, by “tin-kettling a newly‑married couple in Rainbow Street,” earned the displeasure of a correspondent to the Moreton Mail. He regretted that they could not be “legally dispersed by a few charges of duck shot”. That would have enlivened the street a bit.
Better paved and more genteel our modern Rainbow Street may be, but it probably lacks the excitement of its early days.
With thanks to the Sandgate Historical Museum (opening hours: Sunday and Wednesday, 9 am to 1.30 pm. Adults $5, Children $3, Membership $20/$30).
Read more stories from the Sandgate Guide print magazine here:
- Bramble Buzz: Updates from the Community
- Podcast Review: Behind the B@stards
- Winter Family Movies
- Reflect And Recharge For A Meaningful Mid-Year Reset
- Organic Gardening in July
- Garden Show Plants Seeds for Family Fun
- KSBA Einbunpin Kids Art Competition
- Community Comes Together for Festival Fun
- Celebrating a century
- A Fond Farewell and a New Chapter for Jim’s Washing Machine Repairs in Brighton
- Community Hero Collects Containers To Care For Wildlife
- Calling all hot girls – let’s walk and chat
- Heroes for Hope: Sandgate’s Bayside Bar Tour Returns
- Lodge helps local charity
- Celebrating community and culture
- Fashionably Forward Fundraising
- Writing for the stage
- Christmas Comes Early in Brighton
- Reconciliation Week
- Nashville Spirit Ignites As Einbunpin Festival Prep Begins
Photograph: John Oxley Library, State Library of Qld, Neg No 52078
