A Short Cairns History
| September 16, 2011 | Posted by wpa under Uncategorized |
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As we walk our roads of Cairns, give a second of thought of how these roads came into being and of the people who made them.
In the Smithfield area, dairying and attempts at agriculture both there and the other side of the Barron River, required better access to the town proper, and local governance was faced with the necessity to overcome the worst imaginable natural conditions, always aggravated by the heavy rains of January to March.
The Smithfield road was built in May 1877, and the conditions were described by one of the road labourers, Mark Bennett, about the section from Saltwater Creek to the Barron. “horses were so badly bogged they had to be shot, and the logs for the corduroy(logs laid across mucky crossings) sank out of sight as soon as they were laid.”
This quarried metal was prone to excessive dust and the fear of fire from the dust, meant that the Council decided to drill wells every 3 chains in Abbott St to dampen the ardour of the dust.. Remember, By 1942 the only “metalled” roads were the internal streets of Abbott to Aplin and the Edge Hill and Mulgrave roads.
Before long the hillside at Edge Hill was quarried and the material used for a permanent road. The first rock for metalling the Cairns streets came from this pit.
At one stage there was talk of raising the level of the town at some point near Minne and Sheridan Sts., due to the monsoon problem.
Sherimoore St. Oh, Was named after Brinsley Guise Sherimoore, the Bible Museum owner at Cooktown(1871-1879) who had been ordered to proceed to Trinity Bay and inspect the harbour reported on by Dalrymple.
He died in Cardwell in 1879 and is buried there.
