Edmonton
Initially known as Hambledon, then Hambledon Junction, the suburb of Edmonton lies just over 11 kilometres south-southwest of downtown Cairns, on the Bruce Highway, in Yidinji Country, within the Cairns Region local government area.
European settlement in the area began when Melbourne-based biscuit-maker Thomas Swallow identified it as a suitable place to produce sugar and established the plantation he named after his birthplace — Hambleden, in the Thames Valley — in 1882.
After the Hambledon Mill opened in 1883, the sugar was taken by horse-drawn tram to Swallow's Wharf in Trinity Inlet. While Swallow's £180,000 investment saved the district from stagnation, financial difficulties led the Cairns Mayor Richard Ash Kingsford to buy the refinery on a leaseback arrangement that made little or no profit. CSR acquired the operation in 1897 for £60,000.
When the Cairns local government divisional board built the Cairns-Mulgrave Tramway (a 3 feet 6 inches gauge railway) to Gordonvale, a CSR line joined the line at Hambledon Junction. Confusion between Hambledon Mill and Hambledon Junction railway station prompted the local progress association to suggest changing the station's name to Edmonton. The change was made in 1914.
Although the Hambledon Mill's output was roughly equal to nearby mills at Gordonvale and Babinda, as suburban Cairns spread past Mount Sheridan and White Rock in the 1970s and '80s, the area devoted to cane production decreased steadily. The mill was closed and demolished in 1991. Cane is still grown in the area, and a tramway network delivers the harvest to the Mulgrave Sugar Mill at Gordonvale.
Sources:
Queensland Places: https://queenslandplaces.com.au/edmonton
Wikipedia: Edmonton, Queensland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton,_Queensland
