Georgetown
Located 270 kilometres southwest of Cairns and 360 kilometres northwest of Townsville, on the Etheridge River and the northern border of Ewamian country, Georgetown is the administrative centre of the Etheridge Shire and a significant stop on the Savannah Way tourist route. The Gulf Developmental Road connects the town to Cairns—380 kilometres to the east—and Normanton—301 kilometres to the west.
The town's origins as the hub of an alluvial gold rush on the Etheridge River meant it was initially named after the river; the name was changed to honour goldfields commissioner Howard St George in 1871.
The settlement developed rapidly after Queensland Government geologist Richard Daintree discovered gold on the Etheridge in 1869, with the population peaking at around three thousand before more lucrative prospects on the Palmer and the Hodgkinson drew many of the footloose prospectors away.
Georgetown had a repeating station on the overland telegraph line to the Gulf in 1870, a post office and courthouse in 1872 and a school by late 1874. While a lack of pupils prompted a brief closure in 1877, the school reopened the following year and has remained in operation since then.
As mining operations moved underground, the telegraph station and administrative functions ensured a degree of economic stability as pastoralism entered the equation, thanks to the district's fertile red basalt soils. As the town developed into a commercial service centre, more durable, white-ant-proof structures replaced the original wood-and-canvas buildings.
In 1882, Georgetown had ten hotels, an equal number of billiards rooms and an enlarged courthouse. While mineral lodes' production offset costs caused by distance and lack of water, by the early 1900s, mining was depressed. Although copper mining at Einasleigh saw a railway line to carry the ore to the smelters at Chillagoe opened in 1908, the line was not extended to Georgetown. Still, it remains the Etheridge Shire's administrative centre, sits in the heart of some of Queensland's best gemfields, and continues to benefit from outback tourism.
