Located in Kuku Yalanji country around one hundred and twenty kilometres south-south-west of Cooktown, two hundred and twenty kilometres west-north-west of Cairns on the north bank of the Palmer River near the junction of Butcher's Creek, twenty-five kilometres east of the Palmer goldfield's initial centre around Palmerville, Maytown began as a mining camp in late 1873 as miners worked their way upstream from the area where William Hann's 1872 expedition found traces of gold in 1872 and James Venture Mulligan's party established that the find was payable in August 1873.
The settlement was initially named Butcher's Gully, then Edwardstown (after butcher John "Jack" Edwards") until mining warden Philip Sellheim renamed it Maytown in 1874. At its peak, Maytown boasted a dozen hotels, three tobacconists and stationers, Edwards & Co's butcher shop, a lemonade factory, a post office, several bank branches and a surgeon's practice and its own newspaper (the four-page Golden Age, replaced by the Palmer Chronicle in 1883).
After the population peaked in 1877 a long decline set in. The railway from Cooktown to Maytown via Laura crossed the Laura River in 1891, but that was as far as it went.
By the turn of the century the town was down to a single hotel as diminishing gold yields saw the population continue to dwindleand by the 1950s the town was virtually deserted.
Today, virtually nothing remains although stone kerbing and channelling along what was formerly Leslie Street that points towards the 19th century residents' belief in the town's long-term future.
Image:
Maytown Township (2003), stumps of the former school? (State of Queensland: Queensland Heritage Register: Maytown Township (2003)https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/heritage-register/detail/?id=602255#
Heritage branch staff, CC BY 3.0
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maytown_Township_(2003),_stumps_of_the_former_school%3F.jpg
Colin Hooper, Angor to Zillmanton: stories of North Queensland's deserted towns
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maytown,_Queensland
Queensland Heritage Register: https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/heritage-register/detail/?id=602255
Queensland Places: Maytown: https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/queensland-places-maytown
Queensland Places: Palmer River: https://www.queenslandplaces.com.au/palmer-river
Queensland Times (Ipswich) 15 September 1923 (Trove)
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/125408274?searchTerm=Palmer Golden Age
Links:
Kuku Yalanji
Cooktown, two hundred and twenty kilometres west-north-west of
Cairns on the north bank of the
Palmer River
Butcher's Creek
Palmer goldfield
Palmerville
William Hann
James Venture Mulligan
Philip Sellheim
Golden Age
Palmer Chronicle
Laura
Laura River
