Cairns history and heritage: from Gimuy country to Far North gateway

Cairns' history begins with the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people whose country the 1876 European settlement displaced, and extends through the gold rush era of the Hodgkinson and Palmer goldfields, the sugar cane industry that the South Sea Islander labour force (blackbirded and later deported) established, and the tourism transformation of the late 20th century that made the Great Barrier Reef accessible to the world.

Cairns Museum — the museum in the heritage School of Arts building in City Place covers the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji history, the gold rush era that made Cairns a port city, the South Sea Islander heritage, and the WWII significance of Cairns as a staging base for the New Guinea campaign that brought General MacArthur's forces north from Australia.

Kuranda historic railway and the rainforest settlement — the 1891 railway from Cairns to Kuranda — built through the rainforest and the Barron Gorge at a cost of 24 workers' lives in the construction — is the most significant heritage infrastructure project in Queensland outside the south-east. The railway opened the Atherton Tablelands to agriculture and remains operational as the Kuranda Scenic Railway heritage tourism service.

Cairns Heritage Library and St Monica's Cathedral — the St Monica's Cathedral Trinity Windows — incorporating coloured glass that creates a stained glass account of the Great Barrier Reef's marine life — and the heritage library collection provide the cultural and religious heritage that the city's colonial era created in the tropical north.

Gordonvale and the cane heritage — the cane farming town of Gordonvale 24 kilometres south of Cairns preserves the sugar industry heritage — the Mulgrave Mill, the cane railway, and the multicultural community that the Pacific Islander, Chinese, Italian, and Greek labour histories created — that the Cairns region sugar industry depended on from the 1880s.

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