Key events in Stanthorpe during the year 1918:
• 24 May 24
A Stanthorpe Soldier’s Experience
• 1918
Beverly State School (now Severnlea) opens.
Jibbenbar State School Opens to educate children connected with Jibbenbar Arsenic Mine (Arsenic was used to produce pentoxide to control prickly pear).
A Boy’s Grievance, 1 November.
March for Freedom, 31 May.
An expert packer from Mildura, Mr W. Rowlands, is appointed and holds packing classes throughout the Granite Belt.
• Comments recorded by the Stanthorpe Border Post:
“The cows that make some of our back streets a camping ground ought to be impounded.”
“The traffic regulations are a farce – ‘keep to the left’ is observed when drivers think of it, but the majority appear to be very absent-minded.
“The main street is very often taken as a racing ground for motorists and others. I don’t think it was constructed for this purpose but seeing that this racing is allowed, one would think it was.”
• 15 November
Peace Celebrations, Armistice Signed/Peace With Victory (Great Rejoicings in Stanthorpe).
• 26 March
A new hospital is urgently required, public meeting, proposals called for site.
• 8 August
Stanthorpe apples in Liverpool, report on a trial shipment sent of W.A. Petźler (Jonathans and Munroe Favourites)
• 23 August
The Electric Lighting Project:
Kerosene reached a price of £1 case due to the shortage of shipping space between America and Australia.
The price is continually soaring, stocks are short and it is only a matter of time before kerosene is unprocurable.
In view of this, a projected company applied for an order in Council to supply electric light and power to Stanthorpe.
State Government after shelving the matter for a few months, refused to grant the right, no reasons given.
“There is now nothing more certain than that the people of Stanthorpe will pay famine prices for their lighting, while if the government had granted the order asked for last year, the town would not be lighted with electricity and the people would be getting their light at a very cheap rate.
“We do not mind whether the Council or company provide the electric light, but we do say that this town is being done a great injustice by the attitude the Government has taken up.”
• 13 September 13
The Summit Co-operative Sawmilling Company purchases a sawmilling plant for supplying fruit cases.
• 20 September
Show Society agrees to give half an acres of the old showground to the ambulance.
Show Society agreed to retain a portion and another portion was set aside for a technical college.
The Kyoomba Sanatorium:
It will be remembered that when the first of our returned men reached home, Mrs Allison offered the use of the Kyoomba Sanatorium for returned soldiers during the period of the war.
The question of enlarging the Sanatorium recently received the attention of the military authorities and prior to this, negotiations were entered into with Mrs Allison for the purchase of the property.
These have now been completed and it is understood that Mrs Allison has sold the sanatorium to the Commonwealth on very liberal terms (for the purposes of a military consumptive sanatorium).
• 18 October
Influenza epidemic
