Former cattle drafter Barry Coonan from Wellcamp reflects on his history with the Toowoomba Saleyards at Harristown following the announcement of their indefinite closure.

“I worked at the Saleyards for 58 years and retired in 2015, at the age of 75.

In that time, we went from the open auction to the scales.

I used to work four days at the sales, three in Toowoomba and one in Oakey, handling and drafting the cattle.

When I started, sellers would walk cattle in from Pittsworth and Greenmount.

Stock routes were used for the first 15 years (Barry was there) before trucks became common (in the late 1960s and early 1970s).

Fred Keong used to walk the cattle down from Toowoomba to Oakey.

The cattle would be brought down to Charlton, and then transferred to a separate group of staff, who would walk them the rest of the way. Later on, Fred had his own trucks.

There was a fair few trucking groups around.

Iseppis used to have a few trucks and Robertson’s Transport had a few as well.

In those days, nearly every butcher in town would buy stock from the Saleyards.

I met my wife Roslyn at the Saleyards.

She worked in office for AML&F (Australian Mercantile Land and Finance Company), before moving to the yard where we met.

It could be tough work – you’d yard 3000 cattle, all day and half the night.

Sometimes, you’d draft on Sunday night and wouldn’t finish until 5am on the Monday.

Then you’d start work again at 9am for the sales!

You had to watch the cattle too. I remember one time we went out to Condamine Street with 200-300 cattle. They broke on us and we spent two days going all over Harristown!

Oakey was a big yard in years gone by – they had a lot of pigs and calves with 1000 head of cattle every Thursday.

Barry Coonan in 2015, the year of his retirement.

KR would come out and walk their cattle from Oakey back to Toowoomba.

Roma and Dalby weren’t real strong in those days, but today, there’s a lot of computerised buying and most sellers don’t come past Dalby or Roma.

I enjoyed it and met a lot of good people. Most of the time, there were a lot more spectators than cattle buyers at the sales. After the sales we’d go to the Stock Exchange Hotel for a beer.”

(Up until its closure, Barry was still visiting the saleyards to keep up with old acquaintances).

This article appeared in On Our Selection News, 8 May 2025.