A brief history of Nambour museum

The Nambour Museum Float entry in the 1993 Sugar Festival Parade with Gayle Plater sitting on the hay bale.

“Support Call for Nambour Museum” was the headline in the Nambour Chronicle resulting in a public meeting being called on the 22 August 1992. After hours spent collecting suitable objects, constant, lobbying and endless discussions, a generous donation from a local citizen, Mrs Bolton, enabled the lease of a few rooms in the present Museum building.

Appropriately , part of the building was composed of the the Nambour School headmaster’s residence in use from 1908 to 1931 and then occupied through the years by the Departments of Primary Industries and Public Works (QBuild)..

Nambour’s first museum was officially opened with much fanfare on 20 April 1998 by the Hon. Neil Turner M.L.A. who murmured to Shire Chairman Eddie de Vere “We’d better be careful. They’re looking for old things in here!”

A large rental of $2 000 per annum was paid for partial use of the upper level of the building. This required constant fund-raising until lobbying by Peter Wellington MP resulted in the granting of a 30 year lease of the entire building and grounds to the museum for the payment of a ‘peppercorn rent’.

The development and improvements to the Nambour Museum began in earnest.