Petrie Bight

The area was named after Andrew Petrie, who was the Superintendent of Works of the Moreton Bay Penal Colony and first free settler of Brisbane.

[4] In 1837 Andrew Petrie who had been living in the Female Factory since his arrival to the penal settlement, selected a site on the bend of the river and constructed his residence.

[5] The location of Customs House and the preference for wharves was due to site being directly downstream from the central business district.

Photographs from the 1860s and early 1870s show a tall paling fence around the perimeter of the gas works, prohibiting public access.

An 1849 decision to locate Brisbane's first purpose-built Customs House at the northern end of the Town Reach acted as the impetus for the development of wharves on this part of the river.

During the 1850s and 1860s, a number of shipping companies and private investors constructed wharves and warehouses between the Customs House and Alice Street, near the City Botanic Gardens.

Purchase of land from the Brisbane Gas Company in 1902 gave the Council control of the river frontage from the Customs House to Boundary Street, and between 1913 and 1916 the Council constructed reinforced concrete wharves between Macrossan and Boundary Streets, and between Kennedy Wharf and the Customs House.

From the late 1890s, Howard Smith and Company Ltd occupied the Council's Boundary Street Wharf at Petrie's Bight and in the early years of the 20th century leased the adjacent new wharves constructed by Brisbane Wharves Limited at the base of the New Farm cliffs, below Bowen Terrace.

[2] In the early 20th century the roads to Petrie's Bight were improved significantly by the Brisbane City Council, providing an important impetus for the construction of new warehouses in the Upper Adelaide Street area.

From 1923 to 1928 the Brisbane City Council implemented its most ambitious town improvement scheme to that date: the widening of Adelaide Street by 14 feet along its entire length.

The work was undertaken in stages, commencing in 1923 at the southern end where the new Brisbane City Hall was under construction.

In physical terms the boom was expressed in a spate of building activity that transported the central business district of Brisbane into the 20th century, shedding its late Victorian image.