Names
Australian Placenames of German Background
Minden, Queensland
Minden is west of Brisbane, on the Warrego Highway en route to Toowoomba.
A town entrance sign at Minden, Queensland.
Minden is a rural locality between Marburg and Hatton Vale, approximately 50 km southwest of Brisbane in the Lockyer Valley. After land was made available in the area Minden was settled by mostly German farmers in the 1870s. Around 1879 it was named after the town Minden in the northeast of the present-day German state (Land) of North Rhine-Westphalia. In Queensland's Minden about 30 of the 34 farmers listed in the post office directory of the year 1911 had German surnames. Late in World War I the Queensland village was renamed Frenchton due to anti-German feelings, but reverted to Minden in 1930.
♦ Reference:
'Minden'. Queensland Places. Centre for the Government of Queensland. <https://queenslandplaces.com.au/minden>.