The life of influential and flamboyant former Gold Coast mayor Sir Bruce Small is being remembered in a new photographic exhibition.
More than 90 photos documenting the life of Sir Bruce have gone on show at the Gold Coast and Hinterland Society Museum.
Born in Sydney in 1895, Sir Andrew Bruce Small, known throughout his life as 'Bruce' was described as a non-swearing, non-drinking, God-fearing Christian.
In 1920, he bought a bicycle shop in Malvern, which he grew into the nationally-renowned Malvern Star Company.
In his early years Sir Small was also heavily involved with organisations helping the blind, guiding at-risk youth and housing the elderly.
He moved to the Gold coast in 1958 and used his fortune to buy and reclaim more than 200 hectares of land behind Surfers Paradise.
Ongoing arguments with the council over planning saw him make a successful bid to become mayor of the Gold Coast in 1967 under the slogan: Think Big, Vote Small.
Sir Small was an immensely popular mayor and was knighted in 1974.
In 1972 he briefly held a seat in the state parliament before returning to the role of mayor in 1976.
You either loved him or hated him
But a deteriorating relationship with fellow councillors soon saw his tenure end in controversy.
The council was dismissed by the Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson government and an administrator appointed in 1978.
Later that year Sir Bruce fell ill with cancer and he died in May, 1980.
A statue was erected in his honour in Surfers Paradise in 1986, where it still stands to this day.
Putting the Gold Coast on the map
Sir Bruce was an avid promoter of the Gold Coast both nationally and internationally.
In 1968 — with his trained poodle Mimi and a group of Meter Maids in tow — he toured Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore spruiking his city.
A 1970s promotional video shows Sir Small boasting of the city's future.
"We're the greatest fun place in the whole of the southern hemisphere and we're going places," he said in the video.
"We'll have 150,000 permanent residents by 1983, we'll be up to 200,000 by 1990.
"We'll have a network of canals running the full length of the coast so that you can go from Murwillumbah to Ipswich in a speedboat without going into the surf."
The dream of a speedboat to Ipswich may not have come true, but Sir Bruce undoubtedly left his mark on the city.
His granddaughter Anne Small said he was a divisive figure.
"You either loved him or hated him," she told ABC Gold Coast.
"He was a man with a mission; he just kept on thinking of new ideas, thinking of different creative ways to sell things.
"He didn't tolerate fools because he just knew that he had to get things done."
'He was so down-to-earth'
However Dr Small said out of the spotlight he was just like any other grandfather.
"You didn't quite realise that he was a millionaire because he was so down-to-earth," she said.
Anne's most enduring memory of Sir Bruce was in 1958, when she was eight years old, tying up the boats after a day of waterskiing on the Nerang River.
"He looked across the Nerang to the then Isle of Capri, which was mangroves, swamp and flood land and he said, 'kids this is your future'," she said.
"I looked at it and I looked at him and I thought 'my god, he's lost it. He's gone crazy, no wonder he's come up here to retire'.
"How wrong was I, how right was he."
Local property consultant Max Christmas was a friend and contemporary of Sir Bruce.
"He was spectacular for his age," he said.
"I was with him all the way some 24 years, so I really did know him on land developments and various things and we were close."
Gold Coast city councillor Dawn Crichlow said the Gold Coast owes much to Sir Bruce.
"Look at the Isle of Capri, that was the most wonderful development on the Gold Coast," she said.
"People from Melbourne used to say, 'oh I'd love to live on the Gold Coast when I retire, I'll go up there — that's God's country'."
"Of course Sir Joh and Sir Bruce did that."
The Sir Bruce Small photographic exhibition is open on Sundays at the Gold Coast Hinterland Society Museum until October.