Qualla: The Robbers Tree https://qualla.com/the-robbers-tree en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:28 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/5/p/8/the-robbers-tree-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: The Robbers Tree https://qualla.com/the-robbers-tree The Robbers Tree: Introduction https://qualla.com/the-robbers-tree/ Photo credit Onceuponashell, CC BY-SA 4.0. It was a dog that gave him away. On 16 January 1880, Joseph Wells walked into the Queensland National Bank at Cunnamulla with a revolver, and within minutes his plan had unravelled into farce and tragedy: a wounded storekeeper, a bridle that snapped as he tried to mount his horse, and a frantic dash on foot into the scrub at the edge of town. Wells scrambled up a cypress pine and froze, hoping the bush would swallow him. But a sheepdog had trailed his scent and sat beneath the tree, barking, until the trackers arrived. More than a century later that tree still stands on a low sand ridge at the southern end of Stockyard Street - fenced, signposted, and known to everyone in Cunnamulla simply as the Robbers Tree.

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Image: Onceuponashell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/5/p/8/the-robbers-tree-wp/r5p8-the-robbers-tree-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Robbers Tree: A Robbery Gone Wrong https://qualla.com/the-robbers-tree/ Photo credit Onceuponashell, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wells was a station hand, not a hardened bushranger, and his hold-up went sideways almost at once. As he moved to leave the bank, William Murphy, a storekeeper from next door, tried to grab him; in the struggle Murphy was shot in the shoulder - by most accounts accidentally. The ...

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Image: Onceuponashell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/5/p/8/the-robbers-tree-wp/r5p8-the-robbers-tree-a-robbery-gone-wrong.mp3 0:06 2 full The Robbers Tree: The Tree on the Sand Ridge https://qualla.com/the-robbers-tree/ Photo credit Onceuponashell, CC BY-SA 4.0. The hiding place that betrayed him is a mature cypress pine, Callitris cupressiformis, an Australian native well suited to dry, sandy ground and found across the eastern and southern states. By 1979 the tree stood about fifteen metres tall on its low ridge near the corner of Bedf...

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Image: Onceuponashell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/5/p/8/the-robbers-tree-wp/r5p8-the-robbers-tree-the-tree-on-the-sand-ridge.mp3 0:06 3 full The Robbers Tree: A Death That Changed the Law https://qualla.com/the-robbers-tree/ Photo credit Onceuponashell, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wells was tried at Toowoomba for armed robbery with wounding, found guilty, and sentenced to death. Despite public debate in the Queensland press about whether the penalty fit the crime - Murphy had survived, after all - the sentence stood. Wells was executed on 22 March 1880 and...

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Image: Onceuponashell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/5/p/8/the-robbers-tree-wp/r5p8-the-robbers-tree-a-death-that-changed-the-law.mp3 0:06 4 full The Robbers Tree: Why a Town Keeps a Tree https://qualla.com/the-robbers-tree/ Photo credit Onceuponashell, CC BY-SA 4.0. Heritage-listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992, the Robbers Tree is valued less for botany than for memory. It survives because a community decided the story was worth keeping: a single afternoon in 1880 when a small Warrego River town caught its own would...

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Image: Onceuponashell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/5/p/8/the-robbers-tree-wp/r5p8-the-robbers-tree-why-a-town-keeps-a-tree.mp3 0:06 5 full