page_title: Tallebudgera Post Office
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tallebudgera Post Office / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Tallebudgera Post Office at Tallebudgera, Gold Coast City, Queensland, Australia.
context_page_description: Tallebudgera Post Office is a heritage-listed former post office at 17 Trees Road, Tallebudgera, Queensland, Australia. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 1 October 2007.
context_section_description: The former Tallebudgera Post Office was officially opened in 1878 and was in operation until March 1958. It was a privately owned and built building. Tallebudgera was located along the main stock route between Queensland and New South Wales and was a stopover point for the Cobb and Co. Coaches. In 2002 the deteriorating property was purchased and restored by the Gold Coast City Council (GCCC). The GCCC now maintains the site as a museum piece for educational and historical purposes.
  Settlement of the Gold Coast area by Europeans began in the hinterland with the harvesting of cedar timber which was shipped south to Sydney or north to Brisbane. Timber getters began moving through the heavily forested Tallebudgera area in the mid 1840s opening the way for the early settlers who came when land runs began to be granted from the 1850s. By the early 1870s, the Tallebudgera area was permanently settled. The population mainly consisted of timber getters and small crop farmers with dairy farming becoming important in the area from the 1890s.
  Tallebudgera's location along the main stock route between Queensland and New South Wales, which became the early coach road between Nerang and the border, led to it becoming a convenient stop and changeover point for Cobb and Co. coaches. To serve the coach road traffic, and the wider farming community, a small village began to develop near the intersection of the Old Coach Road and Trees Road. During the 1870s a number of businesses and services began to appear including an accommodation house for travellers, the Rose and Crown Hotel, a general store, blacksmith, wheelwright, stables and school. Expansion continued in the 1880s with the establishment of a police station, a Presbyterian church, Catholic church and further construction and trade.
  The establishment of a post office was an important element in the development of rural communities, providing both access to a communication network and a focal point where the community could share information. They became an integral part of the social system, providing a link to friends and family who were often many years distant. They also provided a link to the authorities of the colonies, becoming the principal symbol of civil governance in the most isolated areas. Particularly where communities were in remote rural or outback areas, the post office became a symbol of the presence of civilisation. Post offices were nearly always the first government service of facility established in towns, and often the first government building.
  The post office was one of the main agencies of the government in the nineteenth century and nearly always also included a telegraph office in the same building. The buildings constructed for post and telegraph office use were, as a result, usually sited in prominent locations, and were among the more important government buildings in the town. In small towns, or when a town was first established, existing businesses often agreed to provide post office facilities and then, when the town grew, the government replaced these facilities with purpose built post offices. Privately owned and built post offices were unusual in Queensland.
  The site of the post office was part of an area of land acquired by Stephen Tobin through a Deed of Grant in 1870. In 1872 a mail receiving service office was opened and in 1878 the Tallebudgera Post Office officially opened with Stephen Tobin listed as the first Post Master.
  Although the post office provided an official government service, there is no documentary evidence to suggest the Tallebudgera building was ever owned by the government. The size of the post office, consisting of just one room, suggests that it was privately owned and built as even the smallest post offices built by the colonial government in the late nineteenth century period had floor areas larger than one room and often combined office space with living areas. That this building was never replaced by a more permanent, government building suggests, that in the eyes of the government, Tallebudgera was not deemed to be
caption: View from street, 2015
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix S4800", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix S4800 Ver1.00", "Image DateTime": "2015:11:20 02:38:37", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "290", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "27124", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4053", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/75", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "64", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:11:20 02:38:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:11:20 02:38:37", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "31/5", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "787/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "163/50", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "43/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "26960", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "5287", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "5287", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}