Logan River flood records, the Bureau of Meteorology says, extend back to 1887. That is not a metaphor. It is the first row of the table still used to brief the catchment.
At Maclean Bridge the January 1887 height is 22.30 metres. At Waterford it is 13.70 metres. Both sit above January 1974 (21.22 m and 12.95 m), March 2017 (20.66 m and 10.50 m) and February/March 2022 (20.67 m and 11.15 m). When locals say “the great flood,” this is the event the official series is pointing at.
BOM’s Queensland flood summary for 19–25 January 1887 describes heavy rain over Moreton and the East Darling Downs, flooded creeks, Goodna houses under water, interrupted rail traffic, and “fearful loss of property on the Logan River.” A State Library of Queensland photograph note records that the old wooden Waterford bridge was washed away in that flood.
This newsroom will not restage 1887 newspaper colour as if we interviewed the witnesses. Contemporary reports exist in Trove and in later local histories; they are secondary colour, not our measurements. If you want the comparison that still governs 2022 arguments, read Logan floods 2022 versus 2017. If you want the method for the next event, use the weather hub.
The old Logan (Maclean) Bridge was the preferred high-level crossing after earlier low-level structures drowned too easily. That geography still matters: Maclean Bridge remains a BOM forecast location. A Park Ridge or Greenbank resident who never sees river water at the front step still crosses this catchment to the east.
Related: history hub, how Logan West organises in floods.
Why 1887 still sits in a 2026 argument
Every later flood in this catchment gets compared with a short list. BOM’s significant-event line currently includes 1887, 1947, 1974, 2013, 2017, 2022 and 2025. Residents arguing in a street chat usually only keep 2017 and 2022. That is how a record peak becomes “the worst we’ve had,” which may be true for a particular house and false for the river station.
1887 is useful because it breaks the living-memory frame. Nobody organising sandbags in Park Ridge in 2022 was remembering 1887 firsthand. The table still is. A local paper that only writes living memory will keep being surprised by water.
Period newspapers described Maclean Bridge covered, approaches wrecked, crops and cattle lost, and houses made unliveable with mud. Some contemporary measurements in feet do not line up neatly with how BOM now publishes metres at named stations. This newsroom prefers the BOM row when the two conflict, and will say so.
The State Library’s note that the old wooden Waterford bridge washed away is the kind of physical consequence a height table cannot show. It is still not a licence to invent a death toll. BOM’s 1880s statewide summary mentions lives lost in the broader Queensland event; it does not give this desk a Logan-specific fatality list to publish as fact.
If you are here because a warning is out today, this page is the wrong tab. Use the weather hub. If you are here because someone said “nothing like this has happened before,” send them the 22.30 and 13.70 figures with a link to BOM, not a meme.