Capalaba is an urban locality in the City of Redland, Queensland, Australia. In the , Capalaba had a population of 17,333 people. Geography The suburb has large shopping and commercial centres with two malls and a major bus station, as well as light industrial zones surrounded by bushland and residential streets, making it the second most populous suburb in the Redlands. Surrounding suburbs include Alexandra Hills, Birkdale, and Sheldon, also in Redland City, along with Burbank and Chandler (and formerly Capalaba West), which lie within Brisbane. Tingalpa Creek marks the border between the present-day suburb Capalaba in Redland City (to the eas)t and the City of Brisbane (to the west), making the suburb a gateway to the coastal Redlands region for urban Brisbanites. Leslie Harrison Dam is on Tingalpa Creek. History The name of Capalaba is believed to be derived from the Indigenous Yugarabul word for the ringtail possum, a marsupial native to the area. European settlement began in the 1850s, led by farmers, lumberjacks, and sawmill operators. The town of Tingalpa () was surveyed in 1863 with the name of the town changed to Capalaba in 1927. The town was on the western side of the creek (now in the suburb of Chandler). The town was close to a ford of Tingalpa Creek known as The Rocks Crossing () which had been identified by surveyor James Warner in 1850. The ford formed part of the route from Brisbane to Cleveland until 1874 when a bridge was built over the creek along Old Cleveland Road (). In the early days, the community was split into three settlements known as The Rocks, the Sawmills, and Upper Tingalpa. Although a school was desired, it was difficult to agree on the settlement at which it would be established. Tingalpa Bridge Provisional School opened on 30 July 1874 in a wooden shed. This school closed and then Tingalpa Upper Provisional School opened. Believing that the number of children in the district justified the establishment of a state school, a public meeting was held on 29 March 1879 to formally apply for a state school. The application was approved but the issue of the location continued to be argued. Finally the issue was resolved with the selection of a site on Mount Cotton Road, now 5A-51 School Road (), which was equally distant (about ) from all three settlements. On 5 July 1880 Capalaba State