Yet beyond every noble aspiration a newspaper might strive for, The Courier Mail has always been, first and foremost, for Queensland.

From the birthplace of this newspaper in June 1846, in a humble garret on the corner of Queen and Albert streets in Brisbane – a town of 950 settlers – the state of Queensland has been its unrelenting focus and passion, the ultimate arbiter of every editorial decision over 175 years.

When founding editor Arthur Sidney Lyon wrote his first editorial in 1846, the aim of the paper was clear and unequivocal and, as we have made our way across three centuries, remains unchanged:

“As a local journal, it will be our great object to make known the wants of the community, to point out the most eligible field presented to capital and enterprise, to rouse the apathetic, to inform the ignorant, to infuse animation into struggles for political and social rights, to unite the whole moral feeling and intelligence of the sphere in which we move, to transmit truthful representations of the state of this unrivalled portion of the colony to other and distant parts of the globe; to encourage every enterprise that will tend to benefit it, and in general to advance its interests, and promote its prosperity.”

When the Moreton Bay Courier first rolled off the presses, the present-day state of Queensland was little more than a jail known as Moreton Bay – a mangrove-shrouded depot for the worst of the worst.

The “thrice-convicted” offenders sent here from Sydney were so brutal their very presence required an exclusion zone stretching out in a 90km circle from where the city of Brisbane now stands.

No free man or woman was permitted to cross the line into the prison, which was established in 1824, just one year after explorer John Oxley had sailed up the Brisbane River and opened up the region to European settlement.

By 1839, with explorer Allan Cunningham having identified the Darling Downs as prime grazing land and southerners beginning to bring their flocks northward, the mood was turning against our identity as a jail and moving towards free settlement.

The soon-to-be-established Courier would crystallise the rising community sentiment that Queensland was a land for the free, not the imprisoned.

It took until February 10 1842, two years after the first bullock drays had passed through Cunningham’s Gap, for Governor George Gipps to formally close down the penal settlement at Moreton Bay.

But by March of 1846 Lord Henry Stanley was telling the British House of Lords that Brisbane might be a perfect fit for convicts who were capable of reform and coming to the end of their sentence.

“They would be furnished with provisions for a limited period, and also a portion of land. They would also be permitted, if thought proper, after a certain interval, to emigrate to the adjoining colonies and become the servants of the outlying population of these colonies,’’ Lord Stanley told the House.

The newly established Courier took one of its first editorial positions, coming out firmly against the idea of handing out land to convicts, not least because it “placed them in a much better position than the men of virtuous character,” and soon it had won its case.

By the 1850s the Courier was expanding on its position – vigorously backing a free state populated by men and women pursuing agriculture and industry and creating an Australian community distinct in its outlook and identity.

Theophilus Parsons Pugh, born in the British West Indies, followed Sidney into the editor’s chair after building a public profile by playing a pivotal role in Queen Victoria’s decision to make Queensland a separate colony in 1859, having been secretary of the Separation Committee from 1857 to 1859.

The newspaper got its wish, and the colony of Queensland was declared on June 6, 1859, but we were hardly rolling in wealth.

The first governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, who took office on December 10 of that year, found exactly ninepence (seven and a half cents) in the Treasury, according to Federal Bureau of Statistics archives. A few nights after reporting the ninepence, Sir George reported that someone had pinched it.

Finding money for public infrastructure was a problem and Queensland was barely a year old in 1860 when Pugh began what became a long Courier tradition of defending Queensland’s interests against the southern states and, later, in Canberra.

He went after what would have been then considered the “federal government” in Sydney, alleging Sydney was misappropriating Queensland revenue in an article on January 24, 1860 with the none-too-subtle heading “Stop Thief”. The story and subsequent articles managed to recoup some money by advising Queenslanders to pay tax directly to the Queensland Treasury rather than sending it southward.

By 1899 the newspaper was supporting our troops in the first war Queensland was ever involved in – the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1902.

The Queensland government, under premiers James Dickson and later Robert Philp, dispatched mounted infantrymen to a conflict which cost 89 Queensland lives.

In most editions between 1899 and 1902 the Courier, using the high-tech capabilities of the telegraph, was able to furnish reports from the front as well as publish letters home which revealed details of the soldiering life in Africa.

As federation loomed the colony of Queensland was in conflict, with its northern half keen to embrace a united Australia while its southern half was suspicious of the impending power of rival colonies.

Yet The Courier stuck its neck out (in one case in a literal sense) and became nationally recognised as a pro-Federation newspaper, thundering on the eve of the vote on September 1, 1899, that all eligible to cast a ballot must do so:

“Every elector able to cast his vote will be a traitor to the country’s best interests if he fails to exercise his right as a citizen of Queensland and as an arbiter in the destinies of Australia,’’ the editorial said.

An article by Katherine McConnel, “Memoirs of the Queensland Museum”, reveals a man called Edgar Foreman was hired by The Courier to sign on subscriptions to the paper in the years leading up to Federation – a particularly difficult job in the rural southeast which was openly hostile to a united Australia.

Foreman recalled a public meeting at Rosewood 50km from Brisbane where a man stood on a veranda attacking the entire concept of Federation.

He recalls that, “like a fool’’ he chipped in with some pro-Federation comments.

The anti-Federation speaker yelled “here’s that bloody Courier man, let’s go for him’’ and the crowd pursued a terrified Foreman until he found refuge under the canvas flaps of a circus tent.

The shaken Foreman walked the 50km back to Brisbane the next day and quit his job.

The issue of Federation was deeply contentious but especially in Queensland which recorded the narrowest vote of all the colonies with a 54 per cent “yes’’ vote.

Yet on that historic day of January 1, 1901, with the issue settled, The Courier allowed itself some indulgence in its editorial, becoming almost poetic:

“On this day, the opening day of the 20th Century, there is universal rejoicings in the Federation of the Australian colonies.

“We are the Commonwealth of Australia.

“We are the world’s newest nation, holding a place under these skies which bestows unparalleled opportunities.’’

Fourteen years after Australia had federated, the majority of Queenslanders would have read the word “Gallipoli’’ for the first time in their lives when they opened The Courier on April 26, 1915.

The brief report came in a day after the April 25 landing and was published in a tiny article under the heading, “The Fight For The Dardanelles”:

“Unofficial reports are that a decisive action at the Dardanelles has begun. The allied squadrons bombarded the Straits at various points west of Gallipoli, and a landing has been effected at three points – Cape Suvla and Bulair, Gallipoli Peninsula and Enos.’’

On April 27 the more detailed reports, authored by British journalist Ashmead Bartlett (and not, as often believed, by Australia’s official war correspondent Charles Bean) were published.

By April 28 the legend of Gallipoli was being birthed in The Courier and in newspapers across the nation in reports clearly designed to garner public support and further strengthen the enlistment drives that had seen young men march to Brisbane from many regional towns.

The action at Gallipoli was described as not merely successful but a “magnificent achievement’’ in which Allied troops, through “splendid gallantry’’ had won military distinction.

The Courier kept an almost daily record of World War I with stories from correspondents at the front, casualty lists, editorial support for recruitment and even light and sometimes humorous anecdotes from soldiers’ letters home to friends and family.

Tragically, the casualty lists were the most vital service the paper provided.

Readers pored over them, hoping they would not stumble across the name of a loved one. As the carnage of Gallipoli went on, The Brisbane Courier began to publish on a Saturday for the first time to keep up to date with the casualty lists.

By 1916, in one of the most contentious political and cultural issues in Australia’s history, The Courier was clearly behind prime minister Billy Hughes and the Conscription “yes’’ vote, which was narrowly defeated in two bitter referendums in 1916 and 1917.

When the war ended on November 11, 1918, The Courier did not see forward to the re-emergence of hostilities in 1939, but demonstrated an endearing support for the then popular belief that World War I was “the war to end all wars.’’

“If the (German government) is willing and able to accept the terms which have been offered the things that will come will dwarf into insignificance, (compared to warfare) for we may be sure that in any case, the Allies will adequately safeguard the interests of themselves and of civilisation generally.’’

The papers reflected the upbeat economic mood of the 1920s but, like almost all media of the day, displayed little talent for clairvoyance on the timing of the inevitable market downturn.

The official beginning of what was to become the world’s greatest economic depression was reported in the October 26, 1929, edition under the heading: “Financial Frenzy, Panic on Wall Street.’’

The copy was datelined New York October 24 and declared that “the most terrifying selling panic since the war days of 1914 dealt a crushing blow to the leading stock markets of the United States today and was only checked by prompt reassurances from the country’s leading bankers.’’ .

Down page it was reported that representatives from JP Morgan and the National City Bank met at JP Morgan’s office, after which Thomas W Lamont of Morgan and Co “stated nonchalantly’’, “there has been a little distress and selling in the Stock Exchange this morning . We held a meeting of financial institutions to discuss the situation. We found that there were no houses in difficulty and reports as to the maintenance of margins was very satisfactory.

“We consider the situation of the Exchange this morning to be a technical one rather than fundamental and believe it will result in betterment.’’

By Tuesday October 29, The Courier was reporting that Australian prime minister Jim Scullion believed it was the “timidity’’ of British investors about the election of a British Labor Government earlier that year that was behind the downturn on the London stock market.

The PM was reported as saying the mood would wear off while recent cables were showing stock prices were where they were before the election.

The British Labour government had earned the confidence of the money markets and there was not the slightest reason why investors should not have similar confidence in the Australian Labor government, Mr Scullion said, before taking a shot at the previous federal treasurer Earle Page for leaving him with a huge deficit.

By Thursday October 31 the paper was reporting (dateline October 29 New York) that the stock market had made an extraordinary recovery in the last three minutes of trading and the flood of selling which had wiped out $(US)25bn “appeared to be over.’’

And so The Great Depression began.

The pages of The Courier during the ’30s were not always reflective of the enormity of the Depression, partly because we were a state with a small manufacturing sector and a greater dependency on primary industry, possibly allowing many families to simply become self-sufficient on the farm.

Yet The Courier got behind the “relief work’’ which was offered to the unemployed, and which centred on Brisbane City Council.

The council, ruled throughout the 1930s by mayors Archibald Watson (Nationalist Civic Party), John William Greene (Progress Party/Independent), and Alfred James Jones (Labor) soaked up more than 50 per cent of the relief work across the entire state, constructing or improving around 800km of streets and dramatically improving the busy intersection around Breakfast Creek.

The Great Depression was still lingering when, in one of its most impressive front pages of all time, The Courier announced on September 4, 1939: “Britain Declares War.’’ In a sombre editorial The Courier made it abundantly clear its energies would be behind the still intact British Empire and the Allied effort .

“We are at war with Germany,’’ the paper said.

“It is a grim message for people who have thought for 20 years in terms of peace and have trusted that right, justice and conciliation would prevail among civilised nations without the exertion of armed force to assert or defend that rule of law which almost all nations have subscribed to in innumerable treaties among themselves.’’

The leader writers then delivered an almost Churchillian call to arms: “Yet there can be only one response to it – courage and immediate resolution to spare no effort and sacrifice to emerge victorious in the conflict that now must engage all the strength of the British Commonwealth of Nations.’’

Yet the paper was also reluctant to display, or stir up, any aggressive nationalism – a trait it often displayed in the first war.

“We do not enter this contest with cheering or flag waving or the singing of hymns of hate but with a stern resolve to preserve and deserve our own freedom by regaining freedom for others from the oppression or the menace of a military dictator (Adolf Hitler) who began his career by first destroying freedom in Germany.’’

As it had a generation earlier, The Courier-Mail covered Australians fighting in all corners of the globe, pushed recruitment, published casualty and prisoner of war lists, and criticised unions where strikes hindered the war effort.

As in World War II, censorship hampered The Courier-Mail’s efforts, with the paper only able to provide limited details on the Battle of Brisbane – two days of rioting in November 1942 between Australian and US servicemen.

On August 8, 1945, The Courier heralded the Atomic Age and (though not officially) the end of the war with another blazing front page “Atom Bomb Startles World’’.

The edition provided extensive coverage on the use of an atomic bomb on Japan and the military, political and diplomatic responses sweeping the world.

Yet the editorial was hardly triumphant, more thoughtful and even prescient:

“If any historians should survive to record the passage of these fateful years they may decide that Monday August 6, 1945, deserves to be written down as one of the most significant days of all time.’’

The editorial went on to suggest the world really did not yet understand what had occurred: “Even scientists are lost for words that will describe the full magnitude of its terrifying force. It is as distant from present bombs as the arrow from the modern shell.’’

Just five days later, on August 11, the paper splashed again in black type with “Japs Offer To Make Peace.’’

Yet The Courier editorial demonstrated its characteristic ability to look beyond the present, and try to shape the future.

While other leader writers on Australian papers were concentrating on the ramifications of the Japanese peace offer, The Courier’s editorial went hard on both state and federal governments on their failure to adequately address problems with the soldiers’ settlement land program.

The paper’s editorial team were clearly conscious of the failure of the South Australian settlement scheme after World War I, as well as difficulties encountered closer to home at the Beerburrum soldier settlement north of Brisbane. That Beerburrum scheme had allocated more than 21,000ha for soldiers but faltered because of poor pineapple prices.

With thousands of soldiers now preparing to return home to Queensland, The Courier had been examining the settlement program, and had found it grossly inadequate.

“A series of articles published this week on returned soldiers land settlements reveal that Queensland is totally unprepared for this great post war task,’’ The Courier said

The paper pointed out that the history of settling returned soldiers on viable agricultural land was “not a happy one.’’

After World War I, thousands of Australian soldiers were settled on blocks which were too small for viable development, yet overloaded with capital costs which were required for that development.

The Courier was determined that the same mistakes would not be made again.

“Very soon, tens of thousands of men will be streaming back to civilian life,’’ the editorial said. “Many of these are hoping to establish themselves on land. We are not ready for them, and on the present rate of progress we never will be ready.’’

Yet The Courier’s focus on the issue helped ensure Australia was ready. The soldiers’ settlement plan following World War II was far more sophisticated and based upon sound economic principles, and it played a role in further developing the state’s developing primary industry sector still so crucial to us today.

The post-war economic boom which swept the western world also had an impact on Queensland, but the effect was somewhat muted by an economy clearly still operating on a wartime ration mentality.

On June 26, 1950, the start of the Korean War was announced to Queensland readers as cold war tensions between the Soviet aligned north and American aligned south spilled over and 75,000 North Korean soldiers poured into South Korea.

By July 8 The Courier was reporting American Superfortresses had bombed four North Korean submarines off the North Korean coast and the Korean War was in full swing, yet the paper still reflected the war’s extraordinary financial payoff.

By September 20 of that year The Courier was reporting on the beginning of a fascinating and far-reaching economic event – the wool boom.

The demand for uniforms for troops serving in the Korean War was growing week by week, and our regional centres such as Charleville and Longreach were about to enter a heady period when wool prices were referred to as a “pound for a pound’’.

The “pound for a pound’’ wool price was largely (but not entirely) mythical, as The Courier shows the average wool price in the following year (1951) was closer to half a pound.

Yet the boom made many western Queensland grazing families wealthy.

Social events in western regional centres, including society weddings at Charleville’s celebrated Corones Hotel, were good copy for Courier Mail journalists who were constantly on the move.

These glittering events were covered in what in the 1950s were referred to as “womens’ pages’’ which grew rapidly in popularity in the post war years, and became increasingly sophisticated in either developing, or simply mirroring, social and cultural trends.

As the 1960s dawned, the next economic wave to propel the state forward was already making itself felt.

On October 27, 1963, when the thriving Queensland town of Moranbah was little more than a grazing paddock, the paper was reporting a breakthrough in negotiations with our former enemy Japan over coal contracts.

“Talks in Japan next month could give Queensland its greatest export boost since the war,’’ the report declared.

“If the Japanese interests are prepared to come in on long-term contracts for Queensland hard coking coal, the present development of the Moura coal fields in central Queensland will be expanded enormously.’’

The Japanese were interested. By the early 1970s, under the premiership of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who relied on the talents of senior public servants such as Sir Leo Hielscher and strong editorial support from The Courier-Mail, tiny towns were soon dotting the coal fields, creating new communities still exploiting a resource underwriting the state’s ability to deliver services across a decentralised state.

It was as early as October 29, 1954 that the paper began alerting readers to a new threat in a small and largely unknown Asian country called “Vietnam’’.

On that date the paper ran a page two editorial suggesting the “danger from communist subversive activities in South East Asia is a greater immediate problem than the danger of open aggression”.

It was a forewarning of what turned out to be a conflict centred on guerrilla warfare that cost more than 500 Australian lives.

In August of 1962, the paper was reporting the arrival of the Australian Army Training team in South Vietnam, which officially marked the beginning of Australia’s involvement in the war.

Even as the paper was reporting the heroics of Queenslander Keith Payne, Australia’s first Victoria Cross winner since World War II who rescued up to 40 wounded comrades after his 1st Mobile Strike Force Battalion was attacked by North Vietnamese troops in May of 1969, the Courier was still broadly supportive of Australia’s involvement in the escalating conflict as well as the federal government’s backing of US President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was refusing to cease bombings despite the growing protest movement across the Western world.

There were protests, also, when the apartheid-era South African rugby team toured in 1971. Premier Bjelke-Petersen declared a month-long state of emergency, further enraging protesters. A Test was played at the Exhibition Ground amid extraordinary security.

Throughout the 1950s, as the world was fascinated by science fiction, the Russian launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in October 1957 was widely covered.

All aspects of the brave new world of space travel, which clearly intrigued and enthused the Courier’s editorial team, had been regularly covered ever since the post war development of the captured German V2 rocket and the release of the first photos of Earth from the stratosphere.

On October 3, 1956 the paper ran a tiny, speculative piece on space travel, not at all unusual for the time: “A landing may be made on the moon within the next 30 years, the British Interplanetary Society chairman Valentine Cleaver told the first International Space Travel Congress in Paris.’’

Just 13 years later Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon was recorded in a special edition that carried extraordinary detail of the space voyage, and suggested a new interplanetary age had begun.

“First Footprint of Man Of the Moon,’’ was the front page lead on July 22, 1969 in an edition devoted to one of the most significant, landmark events in human history.

As the 1970s dawned and television began making inroads into news coverage, one of the more powerful cyclones to hit the state, Cyclone Ada, arrived in North Queensland in January.

The Courier had covered, almost on an annual basis, stories of devastating floods and cyclones for more than a century.

But Ada, with images of the destruction now beamed internationally by television news teams, prompted far more ­extensive coverage from the Courier and other Australian newspapers that had long ­realised photographic images were just as important as the words.

The images and reports of the devastation of Townsville, Magnetic Island and the Whitsunday tourism islands were viewed by millions of people and sparked moves within the Bureau of Meteorology to ­improve cyclone preparedness and education programs.

Ada was a precursor for the January 1974 floods, the most devastating natural disaster to strike the state since 1873.

About 600mm of rain brought in by Cyclone Wanda swamped the state capital and the southeast over three days, causing 12 deaths and leaving about 9000 people temporarily homeless.

The floods cost an estimated $200m, but also brought to vivid life the fighting spirit of Queenslanders, which was reflected in the pages of The Courier-Mail throughout the first few months of that year.

From the Saturday edition on January 26, which carried an image of a group of kids on a makeshift raft being rescued from a submerged house at Windsor, The Courier-Mail captured the loss, the heartache and the determination to fight back.

In a rare move, The Courier-Mail ran a front-page editorial on Saturday, February 2 designed to bolster the courage of a state still reeling from the scale of the disaster.

“Queenslanders take a bow. This week in the face of disaster, people have responded ­superbly. Many flood victims have been overwhelmed by the way folk – often total strangers – spontaneously arrived to help. There is no glamour in shovelling mud or scrubbing muck-encrusted walls. It is hard, stinking drudgery. There is more than ample evidence of a new community spirit in stricken communities.’’

The paper immediately began looking for solutions to our repeated flood problems, and as early as January 28, 1974 was editorialising that more flood mitigation works were needed in the southeast.

“These floods demonstrated that while Somerset Dam provided some control over water levels in the Brisbane River, it was by no means a complete answer to severe flooding of Brisbane.’’

And so began a push by the National Party government under Bjelke-Petersen, supported by The Courier-Mail, to build Wivenhoe Dam.

The October 19, 1985 edition of the paper reported (rather too optimistically in hindsight) on the completion of the flood mitigation dam under the headline: “Flood Threat Past: Sir Joh.’’

Yet the state and the paper, even as it faced disaster, was looking ahead, with an ­article on January 31, 1974, ­reporting lobbying efforts by Mayor Clem Jones’s council to secure the 1982 Commonwealth Games.

The reporting (not always positive, especially when lobbying efforts cost taxpayer dollars) continued for much of the decade as the state ambitiously aimed to host a major global sporting event.

As southern media outlets scoffed at the idea of this northern backwater securing such a coveted event, the Courier got behind a renovation of the state capital as the river was cleaned up while Queen Street was turned into a pedestrian mall.

By September 30, 1982, the state was holding its breath as it prepared to take its place on the world stage, and by the time a gigantic 13m high winking kangaroo called Matilda had branded itself on the ­collective mind of the international community, Queensland knew it had made the grade.

The Commonwealth Games paved the way for Expo 88, now almost universally recognised as the pivotal point in the evolution of the state capital from backwater to global city.

The Courier was willing to air community concerns about Expo – in particular the voices of West End residents being pushed out by increased rents brought on by the event.

But as Queenslanders such as Sir Llew Edwards, the ­recently deceased former Liberal State Treasurer anointed by then Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke to head up the Expo bid, poured energy into securing the event, the paper also poured its resources into making the 1988 extravaganza a success.

The Courier and Sunday Mail were official papers of World Expo 88 and staffed a pavilion next to the American pavilion while also printing ­official daily entertainment guides.

The articulate and personable Mayor Sallyanne ­Atkinson at the helm of city hall, herself a former Courier Mail journalist, contributed enormously to Brisbane’s new-found personality as the city presented itself to the world as a sophisticated international destination.

More than three decades later, key identities who have played major roles in developing this state, such as Sir Leo Hielscher, point to Expo as the key turning point for Queensland’s global reputation.

The ’80s were a heady period for the state for another reason – State of Origin football – an institution which The Courier-Mail played a seminal role in ­developing.

It was acclaimed author and legendary Courier-Mail journalist Hugh Lunn who, in 1979, first mooted the idea of State of Origin to the equally legendary rugby league administrator and Labor Party politician Ron McAuliffe while the pair were on a flight to Canberra.

The famous quote by Lunn to McAuliffe that arose out of that conversation about the idea of Queensland-born players in NSW being called home to represent the Sunshine State was simply this: “You can take the Queenslander out of Queensland, Ron, but you can’t take Queensland out of the Queenslander.’’

Another close confidant of McAuliffe’s, Lawrie Kavanagh, a highly respected Courier Mail journalist who spent five decades with the newspaper before retiring in 1999, also put his considerable influence ­behind the proposal, and one of the most celebrated sporting events in Australia roared into life.

And from the moment at Lang Park in 1980, when the immortal Arthur Beetson landed a punch on his Parramatta teammate Mick Cronin, State of Origin has never looked back.

It was also the 1980s when The Courier Mail embarked on perhaps its most significant investigation in its 175 years.

It was in December of 1986 that the Courier Mail chief of staff Bob Gordon became ­intrigued, and alarmed, that women staffing what was ­obviously an illegal brothel in the Valley could be seen by students at the nearby All Hallows school.

Gordon and his boss, editor Greg Chamberlin, dispatched journalist Phil Dickie to investigate illegal brothels, even though two previous reporters who had been given the assignment had encountered some difficulties, which included what Chamberlin later ­recalled as “an unpleasant threat”.

What followed was a series of highly illuminating stories about corruption, along with a growing pile of “cease and ­desist’’ legal writs.

With the ABC’s Four Corners following Dickie’s lead and broadcasting The Moonlight State,’ the momentum began growing for one of the most extensive corruption ­inquiries ever undertaken in the nation.

Lawyer Tony Fitzgerald oversaw an inquiry that ­uncovered corruption so ­entrenched it reached into the cabinet room of the Bjelke-Petersen government.

The Fitzgerald Inquiry, which would not have happened had the Courier not started its investigation, led to the imprisonment of three former government ministers as well as the Police Commissioner, Terry Lewis.

It was also a key factor in the election of the Labor Government in 1989 after a generation of Country Party and National/Liberal Coalition rule, the new Premier Wayne Goss overseeing a total re-­engineering of the state and shepherding Queensland into the modern era.

The Courier was on standby in December 2010 as Queensland recorded its highest monthly rainfall on record after a monsoonal trough came in from the Coral Sea and swamped the state two days before Christmas.

With memories of 1974 still vivid in the minds of hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders, the state braced itself as regional centres including Rockhampton were cut off by floodwaters.

A flash flood in Too­woomba on January 10, 2011, fuelled by more than 160mm of rain falling in 36 hours, marked the start of the true horror that cost more than 30 lives and utterly devastated the state.

The Courier, as was its habit over the previous 165 years, dispatched reporters and photographers across the state throughout the entire event.

The paper’s coverage contributed to the creation of the 2011 Queensland Floods ­Commission of Inquiry, which the paper reported on daily basis throughout 2011, later monitoring and reporting on recommendations which have led to Queensland being ­recognised internationally as a leader in disaster ­management.

It’s been a fascinating 175 years.

The Courier, with all the strengths, flaws, wisdom and recklessness which mark any human institution, has been enmeshed in the fabric of the state across more than seven generations, its pages faithfully recording the passage of our lives.

From the days when those shanties dotted the scrub in the early 19th century to the skylines of our 21st century ­metropolises reaching from the Tweed River to Cairns, the Courier has stayed true to its original mission to contribute to the creation of a state that all Queenslanders can be proud of.

The limitless future unfolds before us, replete with all the enchanting possibilities ­offered by a digital age. Who knows, maybe that future ­includes an Olympics in 2032, an event The Courier-Mail has been right at the heart of in stead­fastly lobbying for from the very beginning.

But we can perhaps pause for a moment, give a nod to Arthur Sidney Lyon and his band of journalists toiling away at the corner of Albert and Queen streets, and send a headline back across the centuries that would doubtlessly raise a cheer: “We’re for Queensland.’’