Henry Beor elected Member for Bowen. Conservative 1877–1880.
A.C MacMillan takes up country on the Burdekin.
First land sales in Cairns.
Charters Towers was made a municipal borough.
Port Douglas was surveyed and settled as a shipping centre for inland mineral fields.
Georgetown school closed for want of pupils during one of the miners' periodic desertions to other fields.
Mulgrave area was first settled by the Alley and Blackwell families who cut a road through to Trinity Inlet so they could haul out cedar logs.
Mackay took more South Sea Islander labour than any other port, holding that lead for all but one of the next seven years
December
10 First issue of the Mackay Standard newspaper.