Cribb Island

I was out paddling past the airport the other day and one of the paddlers mentioned that we were passing Cribb Island.  I remembered this name from my early days in BrisVegas (aka Brisbane) but hadn't heard it mentioned in years.

I have paddled past this structure and always wondered what it was before the airport was extended.

The only reference I could find mentions "bathing" houses.  I found the following picture in some archives which shows the bath houses in the background.

A short history was that the area was occupied in the late 1800's by a group of local Aboriginal people before being sold as farming land.  It was developed around 1916 and ended up with a population of 900 by 1970 and was home to the young brothers Gibb (aka Bee Gees) at some point.

In 1970 the Government started to reclaim the land to extend the airport with the last resident reluctantly leaving by 1980. There is a lot of information available which describes how the reclamation was handled and the affects on peoples lives which is a darker chapter of our local past and is only a shadow of the reflection of how we treated the traditional owners of this land.