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Cairns

City in Queensland, Australia

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  • 16 chapters
View of Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 4.0

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The city was founded in 1876 and named after Sir William Wellington Cairns, following the discovery of gold in the Hodgkinson River. During World War II, the city became a staging ground for the Allied Forces in the Battle of the Coral Sea. By the late 20th century the city had become a centre of international tourism. In the early 21st century, it has developed into a major regional city.

The economy of Cairns is based primarily on tourism, healthcare and education, along with a major capacity in aviation, marine and defence industries. As of 2024, the city had a gross regional product of about $12.2 billion. The city is served by Cairns International Airport, the seventh-busiest airport in Australia. Cairns also has a major cruise ship industry servicing both domestic and international markets, with terminals at Cairns Seaport and Cairns Wharf Complex.

Cairns is a major tourist destination, with access to two UNESCO world heritage sites: the Daintree Rainforest as part of the Wet Tropics of Queensland, and the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

History

Prior to British settlement, the Cairns area was inhabited by the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people, who still claim their native title rights. Yidinji (also known as Yidinj, Yidiny, and Idindji) is an Australian Aboriginal language. Its traditional language region is within the local government areas of Cairns Region and Tablelands Region, in such localities as Cairns, Gordonvale, and the Mulgrave River, and the southern part of the Atherton Tableland including Atherton and Kairi. The area in which the city is located is known in the local Yidiny language as Gimuy, and the clan who inhabited the region before colonisation are the Gimuy-walubarra clan.

From 1770 to the early 1870s, the area was known to the British simply as Trinity Bay. The arrival of beche de mer fishermen from the late 1860s saw the first European presence in the area. On the site of the modern-day Cairns foreshore, there was a large native well which was used by these fishermen. A violent confrontation occurred in 1872 between local Yidinji people and Phillip Garland, a beche de mer fisherman, over the use of this well. The area from this date was subsequently called Battle Camp.

In 1876, hastened by the need to export gold mined from the Hodgkinson goldfields on the tablelands to the west, closer investigation by several official expeditions established its potential for development into a port. Brinsley G. Sheridan surveyed the area and selected a place further up Trinity Inlet known to the diggers as Smith's Landing, for a settlement which he renamed Thornton. However, after Native Police officers Alexander Douglas-Douglas and Robert Arthur Johnstone opened a new track from the goldfields to Battle Camp, this more coastal site became preferable. The area was named Cairns in late 1876 in honour of the then Governor of Queensland, William Cairns. The site was predominantly mangrove swamps and sand ridges. Labourers gradually cleared the swamps, and the sand ridges were filled with dried mud, sawdust from local sawmills, and ballast from a quarry at Edge Hill.

Throughout the late 19th century, Cairns prospered from the settlement of Chinese immigrants who helped develop the region's agriculture. Soon after Cairns was established "a few entrepreneurial Chinese men began to experiment with crops such as cotton, tobacco, coffee, rice, sugar, and bananas, while market gardeners grew much needed fruit and vegetables. This marked the beginning of the agricultural industry, which became the dominant industry." "The growing agricultural industry in the Cairns region provided the impetus for Cairns Chinatown to develop as Chinese men turned to support industries such as market gardening and shop keeping. They were not only ex-miners, but a growing number of immigrants arriving directly from China to take advantage of the agricultural boom. In 1886 the Chinese population accounted for 60% of all farmers and 90% of gardeners, that is 795 cultivators and gardeners."

As agricultural changes and the White Australia policy impacted the Chinese population of Cairns, including its once thriving Chinatown declined. A Police census stated the Chinese population of Cairns was 450 in 1909, a decrease of around 1,000 since 1901. "Grafton Street, Cairns was the historical site for Cairns Chinatown – the largest and longest running Chinese community outside Brisbane from the 1880s until the mid 1940s. Supporting a diverse population of Chinese settlers, entrepreneurs, women and families, ..." "From the early 1880s when the Lily Creek Chinese camp moved into Sachs Street, Chinatown was a busy and thriving community. According to Cathie May, the social structure of the community was divided according to place of origin with storekeepers on the eastern side of Sachs Street predominantly Sze Yap, and Chung Shan storekeepers and merchants on the western side. Nearly all Chinese immigrants to Cairns were from Guangdong Province in the Southern Delta area of China. Most came from Loong Dou, a small distinct district in Chung Shan, with a smaller group from Sze Yap or the "Four Districts" in Toishan. Some also came from Sam Yap or "Three Districts." " As the 20th century progressed the Cairns Chinatown declined. "Australian Born Chinese showed little interest in maintaining the Chinese enclave. Many were westernised having at least one European parent or grandparent, or had themselves grown up assimilated into the broader Cairns community through their experiences at school. Neither cultural tastes, nor race relations, provided an incentive for Australian born Chinese to remain living in Chinatown. The barriers causing racial residential segregation were removed and many families lived outside Chinatown."

The Cairns Parish of the Roman Catholic Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown (now the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cairns) was established in 1884.

Debris from the construction of a railway to Herberton on the Atherton Tableland, a project which started in 1886, was also used. The railway opened up land later used for agriculture on the lowlands (sugar cane, corn, rice, bananas, pineapples), and for fruit and dairy production on the Tableland. The success of local agriculture helped establish Cairns as a port, and the creation of a harbour board in 1906 supported its robust economic future.

The Wharf Estate Cairns went on sale in Brisbane via auction on 19 February 1889 by John Macnamara & Co. Land Auctioneers. The land was part of the place known as the Railway Reserve. The sale was described by the Auctioneers as the 'largest ever yet held in Northern Queensland'.

On 25 April 1926 (ANZAC Day), the Cairns Sailors and Soldiers War Memorial was unveiled by Alexander Frederick Draper, the mayor of the City of Cairns.

During World War II, the Allied Forces used Cairns as a staging base for operations in the Pacific, with United States Army Air Forces and Royal Australian Air Force operational bases (now the airport), as well as a major military seaplane base, Naval Base Cairns, in Trinity Inlet, and United States Navy and Royal Australian Navy bases near the current wharf. Combat missions were flown out of Cairns in support of the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942. Edmonton and White Rock south of Cairns were major military supply areas and U.S. Paratroopers trained at Gordonvale and the Goldsborough Valley. A Special Forces training base was established at the old "Fairview" homestead on Munro's Hill, Mooroobool. This base was officially known as the Z Experimental Station, but referred to informally as "The House on the Hill".

After World War II, Cairns gradually developed into a centre for tourism. The opening of the Cairns International Airport in 1984 helped establish the city as a desirable destination for international tourism particularly from the emerging Japanese market.

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