2015; it is now used for school administration. On 17 December 1901 auctioneers M. Selwyn Smith offered nine grazing and agricultural lots surrounding the town of the Beaudesert ranging in size from , totalling . The land was being sold following the death of its owner Ernest White. The Beaudesert Shire Tramway to Christmas Creek, Lamington and Rathdowney, operated by the Beaudesert Shire, opened in 1903 and closed in 1944. A local newspaper, the Beaudesert Times was established in 1908. From the nineteenth century through to the 1980s, it was a thriving centre with a shoe factory and meat works as well as markets, a hospital and an ambulance service. The Enright family managed a major department store. The Blunck family managed an electrical store and a car servicing and sales business. As in many areas, globalisation has seen local factories and family-owned business taken over and closed with profits leaving the town where once they would have been reinvested. The Seventh-day Adventist Church was officially opened on Sunday 20 August 1949 by Pastor F. A. Mote, of Sydney, the secretary of the Australasian Inter-Union Conference. The foundation stone for the Beaudesert Baptist Church was laid on 8 October 1949 by C.G. Sweetman, President of the Baptist Union in Queensland. From 1954 to 1962, the Beaudesert State School also provided a secondary school program, which ceased when a separate Beaudesert State High School was opened in January 1963. In January 1955, the family of the late J. Klump built a memorial fence around the Beaudesert Methodist Church (later the Beaudesert Uniting Church). Even though the area was known as Beau-desert (beautiful desert), the droughts and the floods were continuous problems in the area. In times of flood, houses, animals and people were washed away. The damage caused by floods is often recounted in historical documentation. The Biddaddaba History Group brought together the history of the area from the earliest settlement of white people up to 1990 in a comprehensive book available from libraries. The Beaudesert War Museum was unveiled on 28 September 1921 by Queensland Governor Matthew Nathan. Beaudesert State High School opened in 1963. In the , Beaudesert had a population of 6,395 people. Prior to construction, the site of McAuley College was blessed by Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge. It opened on 25 January 2017 with 36 students in Year 7. It was officially opened on 17 November