McDowall: Brisbane’s Most Star Studded Suburb

The suburb of McDowall is one of the youngest suburbs in Brisbane, only formally being named in 1975. In fact the proposed name for the suburb was Annand but was rejected by the few locals that lived here at the time. The Primary school was opened at the start of 1975 and was named McDowall State School (after Colonel John McDowall), so this was the name that eventually was agreed to.

The suburb is located about 11 km out of the city and a major feature is the abundant amount of natural parkland, with creeks, walking track and picnic facilities.  The Raven Street Reserve boasts 24 hectares of bushland and forms part of a long stretch of forest and green areas extending from mountains in the west to the mangrove areas on the coast.

The suburb started to evolve in the 1960’s when a few street were created around the Hamilton Rd and Trouts Rd intersection.  Around this time the Brisbane City Council was trying to avoid duplicate street names across the city so the developers of the “Paramount subdivision” decided to go with a Movies theme.

This lead to many of the local street being names after famous movie stars.

McDowall’s first six streets were Gable, Niven, Hepburn, Finch, Fontaine and Chaplin.

Gable and Finch replaced the developer’s original suggestions Garland and Fonda, which were rejected by council because they were too similar to existing street names.

In the years that followed, more streets were added to McDowall in keeping with the Hollywood theme including Disney, Bogart, Wynam, Woodward and Wayne.

More movie-star themed streets were added in the 1970s as the estate continued to be developed and new street names were introduced up until 1996.

The current boundary of McDowall excludes some of the original street names, giving surrounding suburbs Everton Park and Stafford Heights their own touch of the silver screen.

List of some McDowall streets and who they are named after:

Marlon ‘Brando’ St

Sean ‘Connery’ St

George ‘Lazenby’ St

Harry ‘Belafonte’ St

Brigitte ‘Bardot’ St

Dustin ‘Hoffman’ St

Faye ‘Dunaway’ St

Mia ‘Farrow’ St

Diane ‘Cilento’ St

Gene ‘Hackman’ St

Peter ‘Ustinov’ Cres

Steven ‘Spielberg’ St

Barbra ‘Streisand’ Dr

Marilyn ‘Monroe’ Pl

Frank ‘Sinatra’ Cres

Sidney ‘Poitier’ St

Kevin ‘Kline’ Pl

Peter ‘Sellers’ Pl

Clint ‘Eastwood’ Pl

The Downfall Creek Bushland Centre in the Raven St Reserve at McDowall.

Surrounding suburbs:

James ‘Garner’ St, Everton Park

Alec ‘Guinness’ St, Everton Park

Jane ‘Fonda’ St, Everton Park

Peter ‘O’Toole’ St, Everton Park

Eva ‘Bartok’ St, Everton Park

Judy ‘Garland’ St, Everton Park

Kim ‘Novak’ St, Everton Park

Katharine ‘Hepburn’ St, Stafford Heights

Walt ‘Disney’ St, Stafford Heights

James ‘Cagney’ St, Stafford Heights

Robert ‘Redgrave’ St, Stafford Heights

Steve ‘McQueen’ St, Stafford Heights

I am sure that we may have missed a few, so let us know if we failed to include your street.