History

Our school has a long and proud history!

The weekend before we opened on the 20th September 1869, the school was used to welcome the Governor of Queensland for his official visit to Gympie.

The first students were enrolled here just 2 years after James Nash found gold in Gympie.The school serviced the Nashville Goldfield Area where 20,000 to 30,000 people permanently made their homes. The original school was situated where the hall is now. This was later moved to Imbil as a rural school but the building was subsequently burnt down.

Mr McLeod was our first Principal (then known as a Head Teacher) and he had 48 children in his charge. The school grounds at this time stretched across one acre. In 1874 a new building was built and this now forms the present year 7 room.

At the end of 1874, the school was separated into a Boys’ School and a Girls/Infants’ School with Miss McLeod becoming the Head Teacher of the Girls’ School. Also in that year the school grounds were extended south towards the gully and in 1884 a wing was added to the northern end of the Boys’ School and eastern end of the Girls’ School.

In 1890 the Infants’ School separated from the Girls’ School with Miss Phelan appointed as the Head Teacher of the Infants’ School. The school grounds were extended southward and eastward to have One Mile Road as its eastern boundary - the school now occupied 4 to 5 acres.

In 1891 the total school population was 1000 and a new Boys’ School building was built. The Administration office, Principal’s office, staffroom and a classroom presently occupy this building. The boys moved in during November leaving room for the girls to move to the old Boys’ School buildings. We now had three buildings and Mr McLeod was still Head Teacher for the Boys’ School. Miss McLeod was Head Teacher for the Girls’ School and Miss Phelan was Head Teacher for the Infants’ School.

Some of the notable events in history

• 1898  The tennis court was established.
• 1907-10 A flagstaff was erected.
• 1910  The first "Wattle Day" was held.

One Mile was the first school in Queensland to hold a “Wattle Day”.  The first “Wattle Day” was observed on 5 September 1910 at the One Mile Girls School. 

Mrs George Patterson, the wife of a Gympie tailor, inspired the idea and wrote a Wattle poem for the occasion.  This was set to music by the school's Assistant Head Mistress, Miss J Snell, who was a brilliant musician.  Between 1910 and 1928 the Wattle Song was regarded as the school song, the children would bring branches of wattle to school and make garlands of wattle to place on their heads or over their shoulders.