Mulgrave Mill
Although sugar growing in the area around Gordonvale dates back to the late 1870s — Richard Blackwell took up land at Plain Camp (modern-day Gordonvale) on 18 October 1879 — early attempts to establish mills to process the cane were largely unsuccessful. After the area's first mill, on the Pyramid Plantation
on Goldsborough Road, established in 1885, went bankrupt within a few years; the machinery was then transferred to Edmonton's Hambledon Mill.
The Sugar Works Guarantee Act of 1893 provided for a government loan to erect central mills if farmers mortgaged their land as security. When the government recouped its outlay —the principal and interest on the loan — these Central Mills were handed to the growers and op[operated as Cooperative Mills.
A gift of land from Richard Blackwell provided the site for the Mulgrave Mill, and a meeting held at Tom Mackey's farm established a provisional directorate with Mackey as Chairman, the Mulgrave Central Mill Co Ltd was registered in Brisbane 20 April 1895 with a nominal capital of £40,000 (subsequently increased to £60,000 in 1896).
From there, work on the mill, which was constructed by A & W Smith, and fitted out with machinery shipped from Glasgow, proceeded rapidly.
