A long awaited bridge that connected the suburbs of Oonoonba and Railway
Estate opened in Townsville with the usual ribbon-cutting fanfare in December
1954 and was duly named in honour of a pioneering Townsville family – the
Rooney family.
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Rooney’s Bridge, Abbott Street, under construction in
June 1953. The sawmill in the background (formerly Rooney’s sawmill) was by
that time owned by the Stanply Timber Corporation, Pty Ltd.
Photo:
Townsville City Libraries.
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The proposal for the bridge was first put forward in the 1930s, and a
loan was approved by the Treasury Department in 1939, but the Second World War
interrupted any plans to start work on the bridge and the project was placed on
hold.
It was originally planned to construct the bridge of concrete and
timber, but shortages of materials after the war prompted the Council to
consider constructing the bridge from steel.
Unfortunately, when it came time to make a start on the bridge in 1949,
no girder steel could be obtained in Australia and the Council reluctantly had
to resort to importing the steel from Britain. The steel for the bridge did not
arrive until late 1952.
Another bridge project affected by the national steel shortage was the
Burdekin River Bridge, between Ayr and Home Hill, which had commenced
construction in 1947.
The bridge between Railway Estate and Oonoonba represented a significant
investment by the Council, as it was expected to cost £50,000. It was hoped
that it would not only be of great benefit to residents living in Oonoonba, but
also a catalyst for industrial development in the Stuart area.
Strangely, no provision was made for pedestrians, as it was expected
that pedestrians would continue to use the existing footway on the railway
bridge.
One resident wrote to the Townsville
Daily Bulletin about this, saying that he felt the bridge design lacked
vision. He suggested, rather hopefully, that since the old railway bridge and
footbridge was in such a “parlous state” it should be pulled down, and the new
road bridge built to accommodate rail and pedestrians as well.
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| Aerial view of Rooney's Bridge at Ross River, connecting Railway Avenue with Abbott Street, 1969. Photo: Townsville City Libraries. |
Once complete, the new bridge meant that Oonoonba was only minutes away
from the city by road, whereas the journey had previously taken half an hour via
the bridge next to the Ross River Meatworks. Although it was soon discovered
that the route from the General Post Office in Flinders Street to the Fairfield
Hotel in Oonoonba using the new bridge, was only two miles shorter than the old
route.
Early in the planning stages, the bridge was simply referred to as the Oonoonba
Traffic Bridge, but in late 1954 the council announced that it had chosen to
name the bridge Rooney’s – after the Rooney family – who had been associated
with the development of Townsville from around the mid 1870s.
Brothers John and Matthew Rooney established the firms Rooney Bros. (architects,
builders and contractors) and Rooney and Co. (timber merchants, sawmillers and
joiners) in Townsville in the 1880s, obtaining red cedar, silky oak and other timbers
from throughout north Queensland.
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| Staff of Rooney & Co.'s Steam Saw Mills & Joinery Works, Townsville, 1934. Photo: City Libraries Townsville. |
Rooney’s built a number of buildings in Townsville, and supplied
prefabricated buildings to western Queensland mining towns. To accommodate
their expanding business empire, the Rooney’s built a new sawmill on banks of the
Ross River, near the site of the future bridge that would bear their name.
