We have lived in Newspaper Hill Rd, Belli Park for some time. During that time, there has been one persistent story about why the road was so named. This story revolved around newspapers being thrown out of a stage coach when it could not climb the hill. Indeed our children had to get out of their school bus and walk up.
Ian Pedley in his 1979 book Winds of Change One Hundred Years in the Widgee Shire has this:- “ Travellers from Brisbane to Gympie…...across two steep pinches known as Big and Little Newspaper, so named because bundles of newspapers were often placed beneath the wheels to give them traction in the mud. At Big Newspaper……passengers invariably had to get out and carry their bags to lighten the load.”
In the Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette of Saturday 4 November 1911, there is a detailed article relating to Newspaper Hill. “a stretch of rough broken country, the steepest portion of which is known as Newspaper Hill. …….. a point from which a number of “Gympie Times were distributed….this steep pinch provided too much for the horses, and so the heavy newspapers were dropped by the wayside”.
Some may need a TOTT.