Eagle Street

Eagle Street

Eagle Street at the intersection with Queen Street
Native name	Tumamum
Location	Brisbane central business district
Postal code	4000
North-East end	Queen Street
Major junctions	Charlotte Street, Creek Street, Elizabeth Street
South end	Mary Street
Construction
Construction start	Pre-1835
Completion	1851

Eagle Street is the main street of the 'Golden Triangle' financial district in Brisbane City. The street has a complex alignment that is mostly parallel with the Brisbane River, it runs between Queen Street in the north-east and Mary Street in the south.

The area was originally known as Tumamum to the Turrbal people, and during the early Moreton Bay Settlement the land was developed for wheat cultivation. The first foundations of what would become Eagle Street date to 1835 are a track that ran along the river bank along with a small bridge crossing the mouth of Wheat Creek, at what is today the end of Creek Street. William Augustine Duncan selected the site for a port, with a customs house built in 1850 and rapid development of wharves and warehouses followed, by 1851 the name 'Eagle Street' started to be used. From the 1880s boom through to the 1920s, Eagle Street developed into a financial hub with a concentration of offices, insurance firms, and banks. Development was halted by the Great Depression and World War II. In the mid-20th century, the wharves were largely decommissioned and Brisbane's first skyscrapers were built along Eagle Street.

Eagle Street is a major financial hub of the Asia-Pacific, ^[1] and hosts government offices, banking institutions, mining companies, insurance and brokerage firms. Major landmarks in Eagle Street include Riparian Plaza, Waterfront Place, Riverside Centre and the Mooney Memorial Fountain.

History

19th century

The Turrbal people are the original owners of the land where Eagle Street now exists, and was known to them as ‘Tumamum’, and beyond it was a finger of land they named ‘Meanjin’. The British explorer John Oxley provided the first written description of the area, when in 1823, he commented on the “bold, perpendicular rock” where the customs house would later be built, and described the area around it as “low and brushy with a few cypress Hoop pines. ^[2]

The British authorities established the Moreton Bay settlement in 1825 under the command of Henry Miller. The site was chosen for its secure location being high above the flood peak and being bordered on three sides by the river which provided a natural defence of the settlement, as well as the immediate availability of fresh water and fertile land. However, the settlement’s distance from the sea and the difficulty in navigating the river was a significant problem, as it was initially totally dependent on shipping for its supplies. After the establishment of the settlement, the low area descending to the river north of the settlement was cultivated for wheat, and is the most likely reason why the creek that traversed it was known as the “Wheat Creek”. The creek flowed through what was later the Roma Street railway yards, forming a lagoon between modern George and Roma Streets and to the so-called horse pond formerly in front of the present Brisbane City Hall site. From here the creek flowed diagonally across the present Adelaide and Albert Streets intersection between Queen and Adelaide Streets and entered the river at the end of the present Creek Street.

Wharfies and merchants on the back streets just off Eagle Street (late 1870s)

Mooney Memorial Fountain and the Mutual Assurance Society of Victoria building, ca. 1895.

20th century

Vista down Eagle Street (on left) in 1926

Street scene in Eagle Street, ca. 1940

References

1. "Brisbane tops Asia Pacific for FDI". Choose Brisbane. 7 December 2015.
2. Steele, J.G. (1972). The Explorers of the Moreton Bay District, 1770-1830.