19/07/2026
Over twenty years ago, in April 2005, the land that is now Pooh Corner Bushland Reserve at Wacol, in Brisbane's south-west suburbs, was saved from sale for industrial development in a campaign spearheaded by Friends of Pooh Corner and supported by Centenary and District Environment Action (CDEA).
Pooh Corner was saved for environmental purposes and 'sold' by the defence department to Brisbane City Council for a peppercorn one dollar. The key to saving this important environment was that its vegetation was classified as an endangered regional ecosystem (RE 12.3.3).
While it was saved for environmental purposes, Pooh Corner also happened to safeguard certain remnant relics from the US Army's WWII staging camp named Camp Columbia, established by General Macarthur in 1942.
Camp Columbia occupied a large area surrounding the land that subsequently became Pooh Corner Bushland Reserve. However, most of the WWII Camp Columbia facilities outside Pooh Corner were demolished in later decades by various institutional developments including prisons.
In 2023, the Camp Columbia Heritage Association (CCHA) was formed to research and document the history of Wacol's Camp Columbia both during WWII and and in subsequent decades. For further details, see CCHA's website: https://campcolumbia.com.au.
In this post, we show a short Google Earth fly-through video, an aerial oblique visualisation, panning across Wacol from Pooh Corner Bushland Reserve in the east to Wolston House in the west.
The video showcases part of the Google Earth Pro (GE) mapping data collated by CCHA for Camp Columbia. It shows an overlay of the US Army plan of Camp Columbia facilities, draped over the GE digital terrain topographical model (with a vertical exaggeration factor of 3x).
Features portrayed in this video include:
. Pooh Corner Bushland Reserve, including the information display board where CDEA in 2023 updated the environmental interpretative displays, while in 2025, CCHA has added an interpretative display summarising the Camp Columbia history;
. Pooh Corner Environment Centre - established by Brisbane City Council in 2015 and serves as the base for local catchment group, Wolston and Centenary Catchments (WaCC);
. Remnants of the former sewerage treatment infrastructure, near Sandy Creek within the Pooh Corner reserve, that served Camp Columbia;
. Camp Columbia's Camp No. 1 where the US Sixth Army HQ was located during WWII on the ridge west of Wacol Station Road; and
. Wolston Farmhouse, owned and managed by the National Trust of Australia (Queensland), which dates back to 1852.
Also shown are various maps and display posters from the Pooh Corner Bushland Reserve information display board.
Video musical backing: guitar instrumental (c) Michael Parker 2010 used with permission.
