Sunshine Coast Hinterland Times

There was a time when the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast was dotted with sawmills. The sounds of falling rain forest timbers and the humming of timber mill saws was as common as the buzz of motor vehicles on our roads today. What follows are just some of the fascinating reminiscences of one small saw mill in Flaxton Mill Road by Gordon Plowman whose father Ray ran the mill from 1934 to 1949. Like many such sites, there is no longer any sign of the Flaxton sawmill.

Flaxton, Montville and Mapleton once supported a large number of farms and citrus orchards. In 1934 my Dad – Ray Plowman – saw a way of making a living by supplying suitable timber for constructing fruit and vegetable packing boxes.

Dad and his friend Horrie Hingston built a small mill in the Flaxton forest close to the supply of suitable logs. They bought an old Dodge petrol engine, coupled it via a belt drive to the mill and began cutting much needed case timber. 

Dad camped in the burnt-out hollow of a huge tree trunk while building the mill. Once the mill was operating he concentrated on building a smallish weatherboard house nearby with a corrugated iron roof. When completed, Mum, Dad and their three children, Patricia, David and Harold (I came along later), moved into the lonely abode surrounded by trees, bush and long grasses.

Tanks supplied all the water for the house and family and so it became necessary to catch as much rain water as possible. The guttering normally used to channel water from roof to tank was unavailable, so Dad split local Piccabean Palm trees in halves lengthwise. By cleaning out the interior surface of each half, he made an excellent substitute for manufactured guttering, which served the purpose for many years.

Once a month the Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Mr. Cowan, held a service in the Flaxton provincial school. The whole family would dress up and trudge the three miles to church. Dad kept 44 gallon drums of petrol on hand to fuel the Dodge engine driving the case mill. He soon noticed how a quantity of petrol disappeared every time the family went to church. Something had to be done so he substituted one of the drums of petrol for a drum of water. On his way back home from church that day, he caught the culprits. Their vehicle had made it only a mile or so before it conked out. No one seems to know what Dad said to the thieves but he had no more trouble after that.

Income from the case mill kept food on the table but not much more. So Dad decided to build a full size hardwood sawmill and take advantage of the abundance of millable logs in the Flaxton forest.

Nugget Evans, who ran a carrying business in Maroochydore, bought a boiler and steam engine to the site. Dad planned the mill so a belt from the steam engine drove a countershaft which in turn, provided motive power for the frame saw, number one bench, docking saw and ancillary equipment such as the gulleter used for sharpening saws.

Mum once took Patricia, David and Harold to the end-of-year school break-up picnic at the Flaxton Provisional School. Ice cream, a rare and much appreciated treat arrived in big, green canvas covered cylinders containing dry-ice to keep the bucket ice creams cold. At the end of the day, a few ice creams were left over and Mum kept one to give to Dad. She said to David, ‘You are the fastest runner. See if you can get this home to Dad before it melts.’ David did as he was asked and came puffing and panting home. 

The boiler and steam engine needed a reliable and permanent supply of water. Dad dug a deep well adjacent to the nearby creek. He equipped it with an ancient ‘hit-and-miss’ engine which pumped water to a corrugated iron tank outside the boiler house. As a very young child, I can remember Dad teaching me to swim in this tank and I would quite happily dog-paddle back and forth across it, completely oblivious of the two metre depth of water below me.

Dad, Jimmy Niven and Fred Bruhn began cutting timber in the new mill in 1936. They cut mainly blackbutt, sometimes tallowood and some pink box Most of the mill’s output was trucked down the treacherous and winding road to Palmwoods where it went by train to Brisbane.

During wartime when petrol rationing affected everyone, Granny’s car had bulky gas producers strapped to one side. This strange looking apparatus produced hydrogen from burning charcoal. Trevor now had the problem of finding a reliable supplier of suitable charcoal which he could use as fuel. Dad came to the rescue. He dug a large pit into which he stacked waste timber off cuts from the mill. The wood was then set alight and covered up. With limited oxygen supply, the wood burned slowly away to form charcoal. 

The other thing I remember is the sawn-off shotgun he kept in a leather holster on the front seat. He sometimes carried substantial amounts of money and he kept the firearm handy, just in case.

During World War 2, the Australian army established a training camp at Mapleton. Sometimes the soldiers were sent out on an exercise in their bren-gun carriers to find a route through the Flaxton forest to the Mapleton forest

and then back to their

headquarters. Soldiers often stopped at the mill to find out the best way to go. On occasions, Dad and all the mill workers plus half a dozen soldiers could be seen squatting on their haunches, drinking billy tea and sharing war news.

In 1944, Hamilton Sawmills won a contract to supply the Dutch government with timber suitable for constructing landing barges. Timber resistant to the salt water borer was an essential requirement and this restricted the range of suitable tree types to Turpentine and Brown Pine. 

Another notable order cut at the Flaxton mill was the dance floor for the Cloudland ballroom. Cloudland remained a Brisbane landmark from 1940, to 1982, when it was controversially demolished.

Dad, Roy Copeland and Frank Hetherington gave up several of their weekends and used the Flaxton mill to cut timber used for building the R.S.L. memorial hall in Montville. The wooden building still stands today.

 When the Flaxton mill was in full operation the normally silent forest became a cacophony of different sounds. Burly axe-men cut down the forest giants until later years when the high-pitched whine of chain saws took over. Electricity came to Flaxton in 1948 and Flaxton mill remained in operation until 1963 when it was destroyed by fire.

After 27 years of operation nothing remains of the Flaxton mill, and perhaps in the grand scheme of things it might seem insignificant. But that tiny enterprise in the lonely but beautiful Flaxton forest contributed in many ways to our society and deserves to be remembered.