Revealed: 10 abandoned South West Queensland landmarks and what happened to them
From former night-life hotspots, to prosperous towns swallowed by a lake, these are the icons of southwest Queensland which disappeared, their history and what happens next.
Regional News
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Ravaged by time, photos and memories are all that remain of some of these grand buildings that were once landmarks of southwest Queensland towns and cities.
From pubs left in the dark to crumbling infrastructure and even charred remains of a historic winery, these are the notable buildings, landmarks and historic locations left to rot.
Here’s how and why they were abandoned, and what’s in store for their future.
PALACE HOTEL, WARWICK
Once a go-to destination for nights out, parties and post-footy beers, the Palace Hotel has been dormant for almost a decade.
The Palmerin St pub closed doors in 2015 and has been dark and empty since, despite being a notable name in the Rose City, even sponsoring the Cowboys football team.
At its height it boasted pool tables, a bottle shop, the odd rave party, plush dining rooms with a revamped menu, accommodation and a truly classic long, thin public bar, and was the starting point for many pub crawls.
In the years following its closure it was home to the occasional pop-up event, and was often targeted for break and enters.
HOSPITAL HILL, ROMA
Hospital Hill, just outside of Roma, was once home to Queensland’s oldest tourist attractions, even if for only a matter of weeks.
On 27 October 1908, oil workers drilling a bore at the site struck gas and within minutes locals say it was like “the discharge of a cannon”- a giant column of fire coming out of the earth.
News of the event spread throughout Australia and caused a tourism boom in Roma, as people came far and wide to marvel at the fire, to see this “Wonderful Outburst of Nature”.
People from all over the state, and even as far as New Zealand, travelled to the Maranoa region to gawk at the spire of flames, roughly 15m in height.
The fire burned for 45 days.
A century later, in 2008, Roma’s deputy mayor Tom Hartley recalled his grandfather saying you could read a newspaper at night from up to 10km away because of the gas fire on Hospital Hill which illuminated the entire town.
To this day, the wreckage of pipes and equipment can still be found around Hospital Hill.
ROMAVILLA WINERY, ROMA
Once fabled as the state’s oldest winery, Romavilla Winery is now a charred shell of its former glory.
Emergency services were called to the Romavilla Winery on Northern Rd just before 6.40pm on June 22, 2023, with officers confirming there were no people inside and no threat to any adjoining structures.
Smoke was still coming off the building at 10am the next morning as police and fire investigators combed the scene for evidence.
The winery had stood on Northern Rd at Roma since 1878.
However, the owners retired in 2012, and it sat unattended until the 2023 fire.
The winery had been the star of Roma’s wine industry at a time, and was the crown jewel out of more than 50 vineyards in the Maranoa region.
PIGOTT’S BUILDING, TOOWOOMBA
At the heart of Toowoomba CBD is a historic and long-abandoned building with a bright future ahead of it.
The Pigotts Building on Ruthven St has a long history stretching back to 1910, and is heritage listed.
The building’s last tenant was a Super Amart store, which closed in the 2010s.
All electrical, fire and sprinkler systems need to be upgraded to make sure the building is up to code.
Toowoomba’s Rowe Family snatched the property for a whopping $4.4m at auction, and plans to spend $1m on renovation to the derelict buildings interior.
It is unclear which tenant will occupy the renovated building, but locals reckon it will bring a spark back to the CBD.
ABANDONED HOME, WARWICK
Across the road from a prominent school, lies a boarded-up brick structure with countless rumours of mass-murder, slayings and ghosts.
The rumours had permeated around the town for decades, until 2019, when the man who would occasionally mow the lawn came out to quell them.
Gordon Mason is the owner of the small brick house on the corner of Pratten and Clarke streets and said there wasn’t an ounce of truth to suggestions that his house was haunted, abandoned or the scene of a violent crime.
In fact, the building has strong sentimental ties to his father, Frank Mason, who was a bricklayer and stone mason in Warwick.
“He built the house when I was young. Kids have come up to me off the street and said ‘how can you live there? There are ghosts in that house,’” he said in 2019.
“It is nonsense. I don’t have any bodies in the freezer. No one died here.”
Mr Mason said at the time he will one day return to Warwick full time and renovate the house, and plans to retire in the Rose City.
PARADISE, BURNETT REGION
Paradise is an abandoned town on the mighty Burnett River, which vanished without a trace.
However, there’s no mass murder or spooky ghouls haunting causing this, simply the creation of a dam upstream from the town.
The town was initially established as a gold mining centre in the late 1890s (around 1890-1893) and was abandoned once the gold ran out in the early 1900s – we can assume 1905 when the school and hall were moved to nearby Mt Shamrock.
The Paradise Dam was opened in 2005, and the resulting lake made from diverted water swallowed the land and several structures of the old prospecting town.
Paradise now sits dormant under the Burnett’s Paradise Lake, with locals saying all that remains is stumps and foundations of the former township.
ACLAND, TOOWOOMBA REGION
While this town in the Toowoomba Region is abandoned, thankfully one man still remains to remember the town.
Acland, near Toowoomba, is mostly abandoned, with dozens of empty and desolate houses, a school and a tennis court in it’s abode.
All uninhabited, except one.
The sole householder, Glen Beutel, has not sold his home to New Hope Coal and still resides in Acland today.
It is understood Stage 3 of the project will not impact Acland township, nor Glen Beutel.
ARRILALAH, WESTERN QUEENSLAND
Another ghost town which crumbled due to lack of railway was Arrilalah, which was snubbed over its neighbour, Longreach.
Not much is known about this settlement, even it’s name’s meaning is unknown. The area was originally settled in the 1860s as Forest Grove.
It’s known the Arrilalah Provisional School closed in 1906, the police station in 1925, and by the 1980s no one lived in the town.
The town was situated in proximity to the Thomson River, and featured three pubs: the Commercial, Royal and Crown Hotels, a police station, a general store, the chemist, a bakery and a saddler.
A letter to the editor to the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin in 1886 predicted the end of Arrilalah due to the news of a railway line stretching from Rockhampton to Longreach, neglecting Arrilalah.
“[A] deep feeling of dissatisfaction exists throughout this district, in consequence of the information that the plans of the Central Railway Extension had been laid on the table of the House, and approved of, with Longreach as the terminus,” the author wrote.
“This means neither more nor less than the complete extinction of Arrilalah.”
By 1900, the Club Hotel and a few homes were all that remained, and by 1949, the Club Hotel catered to travellers, when it closed and the last of the townspeople moved away.
All that remains of Arrilalah is a cemetery – where some 40 people are buried – and a plaque which says how at one time the town was more populous than Longreach.
TURALLIN, TOOWOOMBA REGION
Ten kilometres west of the town of Millmerran, on what was once a busy stock route to the border from Toowoomba, lies the crumbling ruins of Turallin, a town that had its fate seemingly sealed when a railway was diverted.
Historians say that in 1911 when it was decided that the railway would terminate at Millmerran instead of Turallin, the town began to decline.
It is unclear when the town was abandoned, but several pioneer huts, decrepit houses and a well-preserved fence are all that remains, while some residents still live in the locality.
QUEEN MARY FALLS HOUSE, KILLARNEY
An abandoned home on stilts which locals believe was dumped and left to rot near popular Queen Mary Falls in the Southern Downs can be confirmed to not be haunted like many believe.
Interest in the high-stumped house located in the scenic locale spread nationally during the Covid-19 pandemic after it was posted in the Abandoned Australia Derelict Houses and moreFacebook page.
According to a popular theory, the house was moved without council approval to the site around 20 years ago, accounting for its ‘abandoned’ look.
Locals say the house is owned by a woman who was not looking to sell, and would like curious parties to admire the private property from afar.
Originally published as Revealed: 10 abandoned South West Queensland landmarks and what happened to them
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