INGHAM, QUEENSLAND

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A service town for a large sugar growing and processing region, with beef cattle and tropical fruits as secondary industries. Ingham is also the administrative capital of the Hinchinbrook Shire. Ingham's Victoria Mill is reputed to be the largest sugar mill in the Southern Hemisphere.
Location: 111 km north of Townsville; 1482 km from Brisbane; 29 km from the mouth of the Herbert River; 14 m above sea level.
Origin of name: recalls William Bairstow Ingham who, in 1874, established a 700 acre sugar plantation which was known as Ings. The 32 year old was clearly well liked in the community, as the locals successfully petitioned to have the settlement named in his honour when the townsite was surveyed and gazetted in 1875.
Brief history: the Ingham area was first settled by Henry Stone in 1865, but unlike many other regional settlements, sugar and not cattle was established as the primary produce of the area from the beginning. The Gairloch Sugar Mill was established in 1872. The sugar plantations were worked by Kanakas brought in from the South Pacific Islands. When Australia's immigration policy was changed around the turn of the 20th century, an influx of Italian migrants began and continued until the beginning of World War II.
Natural features: Wallaman Falls; Mount Fox (365 metres); Jourama Falls; Paluma Gulbaru National Park (Mt. Spec); Hinchinbrook Island; Pelorus Island; Orpheus Island; Great Palm Island; Halifax Bay; Palm Islands; Upolu Cay Reef; Low Isles; Michaelmas Cay; Cardwell Range; Herbert River Gorge; Insulator Creek Environmental Park; Mount Fox crater, Girringun National Park
Built features: settlements of Trebonne, Macknade, Upper Stone, Toobanna, Paluma, Mutarnee, Crystal Creek, Dungeness, Cordelia, Taylors Beach, Forrest Beach, Halifax and Lucinda; Paluma Dam.
Heritage features: Victoria Mill; Macknade Mill (1870s); Lee's Hotel (the hotel was drunk dry by American servicemen celebrating the Coral Sea victory during World War II. This incident was the original inspiration for the famous song 'The Pub with No Beer')