Clare
Located on the Burdekin River around thirty-four kilometres southwest of Ayr and eighty-nine kilometres southeast of Townsville on Bindal country in the Burdekin Shire, the sugarcane-growing locality of Clare developed where the early settlers established a river crossing in the 1860s. The settlement was Burdekin Crossing or Hamilton's Crossing when W.A. Wilson surveyed it in March 1877, and successively renamed Culburra and Mulgrave (1880) and, finally, Clare after a member of Surveyor General Alcott Tulley's family in July 1882
By the end of the 1880s, the settlement at the river crossing had a roughly built slab hotel and changing station catering to travellers between Charters Towers and points south, along with a Post Office and Telegraph Repeater Station. Debate over proposals to take the railway line out of Bowen across the Burdekin at Clare rather than lower downstream saw the line halt at Wangaratta (Bobawaba) when it reached there in 1891. Pressure from interests in Townsville and Ayr saw the line cross the Burdekin at Carstairs in 1913.
After World War II, the area was opened to soldier settlers, with sixty-three tobacco farms established around the area. Water shortages through the latter part of the dry season persisted until the early 1950s when an irrigation scheme allowed farmers to switch to growing cane, which was processed at Giru's Invicta mill. A short-lived rice-growing venture from 1967 continued until the Rice Mill at Home Hill closed in 1992. Other crops grown in the area include maize, pumpkins, melons and salad vegetables.
Links to add:
Burdekin Crossing
Hamilton's Crossing
W.A. Wilson
Culburra
Mulgrave (Clare)
Surveyor General Alcott Tulley
Wangaratta
Bobawaba
Carstairs in 1913.
Giru
Invicta mil
Rice Mill at Home Hill
