File:Dardanelles Estate, Cannon Hill, 1915.jpg

English: "Splendid position. Good Views. Handy to school."

Cannon Hill, a residential suburb on Wynnum Road, is 5 km in a direct line from central Brisbane. Travel by rail or road is considerably further.

The name is variously thought to have come from two tree stumps noted by a surveyor as resembling cannon or, more likely, from Cannon Hill House (1867) built by an early European settler in Wynnum Road opposite the present primary school.

In 1889 the railway to Cleveland was opened and, anticipating a demand for blocks of land near the station, an estate was put on the market. Ballistic-sounding Shrapnel, Gatling and Grenade Roads mark the place. As an investment, the estate did not ignite.

In 1913 the Swift Company built a meatworks near the river, north of Cannon Hill, and in 1915 the Cannon Hill primary school was opened. A school of arts was opened at the corner of Barrack and Wynnum Roads where a small shopping centre would grow.

The Swift enterprise employed 300 people during its construction and was an important source of local employment. In 1931 it was acquired by the government for the Metropolitan Public Abattoir Board, and a saleyard and holding pens were constructed. The complex, including several wholesale butchery and meat exporters, extended from the railway line to the abattoir on the river, a distance of 2 km, traversed by a spur line. It replaced the saleyard at Newmarket.

During 60 years of operation the Cannon Hill Saleyard sold livestock from most of Queensland (sometimes bypassing Rockhampton and Dalby), Northern Territory and South Australia. It was a modern facility with sealed surfaces, important during outbreaks of stock diseases. During the 1980s inland and New England saleyards competed more effectively, and a feedlot facility gained a putrid reputation within smelling distance of suburbia. The saleyard was closed in 1991 and the land was turned over to housing and an office park.