Killarney, known as the ‘Gem of the Darling Downs’ was part of the very earliest settlements started in Queensland, the Sunshine State.  Alan Cunningham came close to here in 1824 when discovered the Darling Downs and a route via Cunningham’s Gap to Brisbane which became a penal colony in 1842. 

Alan Cunningham returned to the MacArthur homestead in NSW and told new arrivals, the Leslie Brothers about wonderful country in the north.  The Leslie Brothers arrived in 1840 and established Canning Downs that stretched from the Teviot Falls to Warwick and included the site of the Killarney Show and Rodeo Society grounds. 

Killarney’s first settlers battled tough conditions but succeeded with crops and livestock on some of the most fertile soil in Australia.  The timber industry emerged, along with dairying, mining and tourism.  The area had come a long way when the Killarney and District Agricultural Society started with its first show in 1908. 

Mr R. A. Howell who owned ‘Melrose’ station was instrumental in this and the Show rented its current site from him for $30 per annum, eventually buying it for 300 pounds.  Its aim then and now was an exhibition of the area’s produce to be held on an annual basis. 
The KSRS emerged from it is an incorporated body in the late 1980’s