Mackay

Mackay is a city in the Mackay Region on the eastern or Coral Sea coast of Queensland, Australia. It is located about 970 kilometres north of Brisbane, on the Pioneer River. Mackay is nicknamed the sugar capital of Australia because its region produces more than a third of Australia's sugar.

History

The area which is now Mackay City was originally inhabited by the local Yuibera people.

Yuwibara (also known as Yuibera, Yuri, Juipera, Yuwiburra) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken in Yuwibara country. It is closely related to the Biri languages/dialects. The Yuwibara language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Mackay Region.

Captain James Cook, sailed past the Mackay coast on 1 June 1770 and named several local landmarks, including Cape Palmerston, Slade Point and Cape Hillsborough. It was during this trip that the Endeavour's botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, briefly recorded seeing Aboriginal people.

In 1860, John Mackay led an overland expedition to the region to obtain land. Finding most of the inland areas already having been selected by other British colonists, Mackay turned toward the coast and entered what he called the May Plains but is now known as the Pioneer Valley. Mackay was the first European to visit the region that is now named after him. He selected three large areas of land which he named Greenmount, Cape Palmerston and Shamrock Vale. In 1862 he returned with James Starr and 1200 head of livestock to establish these cattle stations but soon got into financial difficulty and sold them off.

In 1863, Mackay has declared a port of entry for settlers. Amongst the first boatload of arrivals was a hotelier and future mayor Korah Halcomb Wills. Mackay was initially named Alexandra but the government soon changed it to Mackay to honour its founder. The first sale of town allotments was in 1864.

During the 1860s, the local Aboriginal population, as Henry Ling Roth puts it, "did what they could to defend their country and their lives." The local detachment of the Native Police under Robert Arthur Johnstone started patrolling the area in 1867 and encountered several Aboriginal camps on the north side of the Pioneer River, one of which contained more than 200 people. A newspaper report of the time says that Johnstone dealt with these people "in the usual and only effectual mode for restraining their savage propensities." The usual mode of the Native Police was terror, violence and massacre. In 1868 a large group of Aboriginal people killed 7 cattle at Greenmount. Johnstone and his troopers were sent out after them but it is unclear if he succeeded in "administering a lesson to the black skins." Colonist, George Bridgman, provided some sanctuary to the remnants of the tribes and in 1871 an Aboriginal Reserve was gazetted near Rosella This reserve shut in 1885.

In 1865, John Spiller, an Englishman who was connected with sugar plantations in colonial Java, planted the first sugarcane crop in the Mackay region. John Ewen Davidson and T. H. Fitzgerald built the first production sugar mill in 1868. Most of the labour on the sugar plantations was provided by South Sea Islanders. The first of these workers arrived in Mackay on 12 May 1867 aboard the Prima Donna. They were seventy in number and most of these were sent to work at T.H. Fitzgerald's Alexandra Plantation.

By the mid-1880s there were over 30 sugar plantations and 26 sugar mills in the Mackay region. Over one-third of the 6000 inhabitants were South Sea Islander labourers. On Boxing Day 1883, a race riot occurred between members of these workers and some of the European population at the Mackay racecourse. Hundreds of people on both sides threw bottles at each other until around 50 Anglo-Australian horsemen wielding stirrup irons galloped into the group of Islanders, knocking them down with their improvised weapons and riding over them. Officially two Islanders were killed but it was believed a greater number later died of injuries. One white man involved, George Goyner, was found guilty of assault and sentenced to two months in prison. Around thirty Islanders were also imprisoned.

In 1918, Mackay was hit by a major tropical cyclone causing severe damage and loss of life with hurricane-force winds and a large storm surge. The resulting death toll was further increased by an outbreak of bubonic plague.

The foundation stone of the Mackay War Memorial was laid on the river bank on 18 November 1928 by the mayor George Albert Milton. It was unveiled on 1 May 1929 by the mayor. Due to flooding, the memorial was relocated to Jubilee Park in 1945. Due to the construction of the Civic Centre, it was relocated to another part of the park in March 1973.

The largest loss of life in an Australian aircraft accident was a B17 aircraft, with 40 of 41 people on board perishing, on 14 June 1943, after departing from Mackay Aerodrome and crashing in the Bakers Creek area.

The Rats of Tobruk Memorial commemorates those who died at and since the Battle of Tobruk. The memorial was dedicated on 4 March 2001.

On 18 February 1958, Mackay was hit with massive flooding caused by heavy rainfall upstream with 878 mm of rain falling at Finch Hatton in 24 hours. The flood peaked at 9.14 metres. The water flowed down the valley and flooded Mackay within hours. Residents were rescued off rooftops by boats and taken to emergency accommodation. The flood broke Australian records.

On 15 February 2008, almost exactly 50 years from the last major flood, Mackay was devastated by severe flooding caused by over 600 mm of rain in 6 hours with around 2000 homes affected.

Mackay was battered by Tropical Cyclone Ului, a category three cyclone that crossed the coast at nearby Airlie Beach, around 1:30 am on Sunday 21 March 2010. Over 60,000 homes lost power and some phone services also failed during the storm, but no deaths were reported.

The Dudley Denny City Library opened in 2016.