European settlement of the area now known as Karingal is first recorded in 1847, with the first wooden house and in 1855, the first brick house, both being the first in Frankston.
Agricultural and
pastoral land use continued in the area into the 1960s. Frankston East Primary School would be built in the latter time. Frankston East High School opened in temporary accommodation in 1959. For two years this included a Scouts Hall, Yacht Club, Life Saving Club and the rear of the Pier Hotel. In 1961 the school moved to a permanent site on Ashleigh Avenue, near Jacana Avenue, and its name was changed to Karingal High. Enrolments reached 1,000 by 1969, and in 1990 it was rebadged as a secondary college. In 1997 declining enrolments led to a ‘merger’ with Ballam Park Secondary to form the dual-campus Karingal Park Secondary College. This was a short-term arrangement though, as the school consolidated on the former Ballam Park campus in 1999 and the Ashleigh Avenue campus was closed. The former Karingal High site was cleared to make way for Regis Frankston Aged Care, as well as a housing estate. The surviving campus was renamed McClelland Secondary College in 2009. In the late 1960s,
residential development spread from Frankston East spread east. These eastern lands were subdivided and established largely as an AV Jennings housing estate, consisting of about 3000 homes by the mid-1970s. These lands are the first to not fit into the traditional grid / right-angled street layouts in all of Australia. It was dubbed "Karingal" as a part of this development, a
Koori word which translates to "happy home" or "happy camp" in
English. During this the Karingal Post Office opened on 1 April 1964.
Karingal Hub Shopping Centre was developed by
Jennings Properties and opened in 1978. It features
big-box stores with specialty stores packed between. It underwent a large redevelopment in 2021, creating a 'town square' for the locality's residents in addition to a multitude of more stores.
Ballam Park Homestead The "Ballam Ballam" estate was home to prominent early settlers of the Frankston area, the Liardets. Frank Liardet, son of early hotelier and artist
Wilbraham Liardet, established the property in 1854. In the 1910s, responding to the suggestion that Frankston was named after Frank Liardet, Wilbraham's grandson stated that the family believed it had been named after the early white settler Charles Franks. The original homestead "Ballam Park" still stands in Karingal today, and is now heritage-listed. It is also home to the Frankston Historical Society, which conducts regular guided tours of the homestead.
Amenities & Park Ballam Park is an extensive recreational area with new facilities including a new $3 million dollar playground, toilets, drinking fountains, BBQ amenities, dog parks, soccer and athletic fields, with amenities for football (Australian rules), netball, cricket, tennis, and more. ==Schools==