1880–1987
An older valley, a new town and a rainy beginning
Tuggeranong's suburban streets sit within a much older cultural landscape. Canberra Tracks includes the homestead and Theodore's grinding grooves in its Ngunnawal Country trail. The later rural buildings provide another set of landmarks, showing how farms, schools and households occupied the valley before urban development.1, 2
The Tuggeranong Schoolhouse was built in 1880 with help from local parents and bricks made on the site. It included accommodation for the teacher and served the district until 1939. Its small schoolroom gives a useful sense of the scale of the community that once depended on it.3
Tuggeranong Homestead carries several periods in one place: an 1830s barn, a house reshaped in 1908 and later alterations. Between 1919 and 1925, Charles Bean worked there on the first volumes of Australia's official First World War history, connecting a farming property with a national undertaking.4
The new town's ceremonial beginning came on 21 February 1973, when Tom Uren and Kep Enderby unveiled a plaque in the rain on the hill now commonly called Oxley Hill. Housing was already under construction at Kambah. The town centre followed in 1987, completing another stage in the valley's transformation.5, 6