A Short History of Thuringowa

its 0#4, Wdkri Xdor# of fhurrngoraa Published by Thuringowa City Council P.O. Box 86, Thuringowa Central Queensland, 4817 Published October, 2000 Copyright The City of Thuringowa This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers. All rights reserved. ISBN: 0 9577 305 3 5 kk THE CITY of Centenary of Federation i HURINGOWA Queensland This publication is a project initiated and funded by the City of Thuringowa This project is financially assisted by the Queensland Government, through the Queensland Community Assistance Program of the Centenary of Federation Queensland Cover photograph: Ted Gleeson crossing the Bohle. Gleeson Collection, Thuringowa Conienis Forward 5 Setting the Scene 7 Making the Land 8 The First People 10 People from the Sea 12 James Morrill 15 Farmers 17 Taking the Land 20 A Port for Thuringowa 21 Travellers 23 Miners 25 The Great Northern Railway 28 Growth of a Community 30 Closer Settlement 32 Towns 34 Sugar 36 New Industries 39 Empires 43 We can be our country 45 Federation 46 War in Europe 48 Depression 51 War in the North 55 The Americans Arrive 57 Prosperous Times 63 A great city 65 Bibliography 69 Index 74 Photograph Index 78 gOrtvard To celebrate our nations Centenary, and the various Thuringowan communities' contribution to our sense of nation, this book was commissioned. Two previous council publications, Thuringowa Past and Present and It Was a Different Town have been modest, yet tantalising introductions to facets of our past. This history adds to this body of work. It's author, Peter Bell has strong links to our city and an extensive literary pedigree. With research assistance from our historian Gai Copeman and previous research by Lyn Henderson, he has produced an easily read book. It provides an overview of our region beginning well before the memory of mankind and touches on all the important milestones in our history to date. As a factual account it will be a valuable resource for students of history as well as the inquisitive reader and points to a range of source material for further study. In marking this important publication, I would like to acknowledge the vast numbers of people from all walks of life and disparate origins whose perseverance; innovation and sense of adventure have together been responsible for our current good fortune. Although progress and development will always remain in the eye of the beholder, equally they cannot be held back. Despite the new knowledge that we have, with our vastly improved communications and technical resources, it is important to maintain a sense of humility that awareness of our history can bring. We can be proud of our past while recognising the previous inhumane treatment of Aboriginals and the horrors of war. An acknowledgment of history is a prerequisite to meaningful and peaceful progress. This is an important contribution to Queensland's and Australia's record, while not purporting to be the definitive history. That was beyond the scope of this project and remains a challenge for the future. With continuing growth and a commitment to a sustainable egalitarian society we can, together, look forward to the next 100 years. I commend the book to you. Les Tyrell Mayor of Th gowa City 5 delfing & dcene I hceitiCesitywoiTchhurwinlighthowae is iofToone of thwen's`Twin is modified by its coastal location and the prevailing U which, City south-east winds. Daily temperatures near the make up the largest urban settlement in coast are typically 15-24°C in winter and 24-30°C in the northern half of the Australian continent. It has summer, but these temperatures quickly become only had the name Thuringowa since 1879; before both hotter in summer and colder in winter as one that it had many names, most of which we do not travels inland. With low mountain ranges producing know. We also do not know when the first people little orographic rain, the region is relatively dry came to live here, but it was thousands of years ago, probably long before anyone lived in the places that compared with other parts of the Queensland coast, are now called London and New York. However, averaging about 1000mm rainfall per annum. The because Europeans like to keep records of their activ- greater part of this rain is monsoonal, falling within ities, we know exactly when the first person from the wet season, which usually happens between Europe arrived, rowing a little boat ashore on Cape about January and April. The rest of the year is Cleveland on a mild winter day in 1819. About typically mild and sunny with low humidity, and 1862 he was followed by many more people arriving rain falling on average less than one day in five. from Europe, and they have been busy shaping the Extreme weather is usually associated with the history of Thuringowa ever since. high winds and rain brought by tropical cyclones The Thuringowa landscape, like most of eastern in the summer months, and these have been very Australia, consists of a coastal plain rising to inland destructive on several occasions since the first mountains. A hundred kilometres offshore in the recorded in 1867. Cyclones or rain depressions can Coral Sea, parallel to the coast, is the Great Barrier also bring very heavy local rainfall, the heaviest Reef. The coast here runs generally from south-east recorded fall bringing 660mm in 21 hours at the to north-west, but in detail swings in and out Upper Ross in 1946. (Hopley 1978, p. 8) around a series of steep rocky headlands inter- spersed by shallow open bays: Upstart Bay, Bowling The Thuringowa Division of 1879 took in a very Green Bay, Cleveland Bay, Halifax Bay and large, roughly triangular area, stretching 170km Rockingham Bay. The headlands and a number of along the coast from the mouth of the Burdekin to isolated peaks on the coastal plain rise to as much Crystal Creek, and inland to the ranges. In the east as 1000m altitude. The mountains to the south-west its boundary followed the Burdekin River, taking in form a lower wall about 600m high, running roughly modern Ayr, up to beyond Millaroo, then west to the parallel to the coast. Leichhardt Range. It followed the ranges north-west, The plains between these ranges and peaks are running along the skyline past Mingela, along the dissected by a number of river systems. The largest, Hervey Range and the Paluma Range past the town the Burdekin, drains an enormous area of central of Paluma, then down Crystal Creek past Mutarnee and northern Queensland, including all the country and back to the coast. Within that sprawling district, over the range west of Thuringowa. It flows north the tiny coastal municipality of Townsville was a through the coastal range and out to sea in Upstart separate local government area. In the 122 years Bay, pushing the coastal plain out in a great fertile since, Thuringowa has been much reduced in area, delta. To its west is the Haughton River, which also losing land to the Dalrymple Shire, the Burdekin cuts a gap through the range and flows north into Shire, and especially to the growing City of Bowling Green Bay. A succession of smaller streams flow across the plain; Alligator Creek and Ross River Townsville. The City of Thuringowa today is roughly into Cleveland Bay, then the Bohle River - an old the western third of the division's original area. mouth of the Ross - Alice River, Black River, This account tells the story of Thuringowa, treat- Bluewater River, Rollingstone Creek and Crystal ing it as the land it once occupied. Many places Creek, which all flow into Halifax Bay. mentioned here are no longer within the City of Located between 19° and 20°S latitude, Thuringowa today, but were within the boundaries Thuringowa is on the southern edge of the tropical of the Thuringowa Division (later Shire) when it was monsoonal zone, but for most of the year its climate created. 7 gedin,o' fleeand owever much Thuringowa may have fertile. Apart from a few patches of older sedimen- altered in the past 120 years, these tary rocks, all the land surface visible in changes are nothing compared to what Thuringowa today is either the stumps of the happened in the distant past, when the mountains, mighty Palaeozoic granite ranges, or their eroded the climate and even the sea were all changing, debris on the plains. creating the land we see today. The first things we When these events began, there were no plants know about events in Thuringowa start a few hun- on earth; they had not yet evolved. Later, when dred million years ago, although there are rocks the plants arrived as the mountains were eroding, much older than that further west in other parts of they too transformed the land in amazing cycles of North Queensland, which suggest that this region growth and decline. The first trees in the region may once have formed part of a great ancient were the primitive Araucaria, which covered the mountain range along the shore of what was then whole of the north in a mighty forest of Hoop the Gondwana supercontinent, later reduced to hills pines so long ago that there was not yet a single by immensely long periods of faulting and erosion. eucalypt in existence. Then in a later hot wet period, We can now see very few signs of this ancient era in modern rainforest covered most of North Queensland.

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