Habana
Rural residential district north-west of Mackay named after the La Habana sugar plantation established by E.M. Long and W. Robertson. Long intended to develop a model plantation and installed 17 miles of tramway to bring cane to his Habana crushing mill, and employed up to 200 workers. He had a wharf on Habana Creek, used for bringing in the mill machinery and exporting raw sugar. The steep hillsides around the plantation were subject to erosion and the soils rapidly became depleted. Falling yields and a dispute with growers over payment forced the mill to close in 1901. Sugar growing did not recover until a tramline to the Pleystowe mill, 12 km south of Habana, was built in 1908. In the late twentieth century the hilly landscape around Habana made it a sought-after location for rural/residential acreage properties.
Half Tide Beach
Coastal suburb south of central Mackay, that serves as a dormitory suburb for the nearby Hay Point coal terminal.
Halifax
Bay, named by Cook on 8 June 1770.
Hamilton
Island Resort in the Whitsunday group south-east of Airlie Beach, originally shown on charts as part of Dent Island with the whole entity named Passage Island, due to proximity to the Whitsunday Passage. 1868 saw the island described separately and named, possibly after a crew member of the survey vessel.
From around 1898 until the early 1950s the island was largely used for sheep grazing, though there was also some cropping. The owner of Daydream Island acquired the lease of Hamilton Island and built holiday cottages in the early 1950s, but the venture failed and grazing was resumed until the lease was acquired by Keith Williams and Bryan Byrt, who originally intended to breed deer. Williams assumed sole ownership of the lease after Byrt died in 1978 and started planning a major tourist resort for the island.
Williams' Hamilton Island Enterprises secured a perpetual lease over the island and a 75 year lease over part of the seabed on the west side of the island where the harbour was constructed close to the only airport in the Whitsunday Islands to cater for larger commercial aircraft and the resort, which opened in stages between 1982 and 1984. A marina with associated marine services, yacht chartering, day-cruise boats and water sport facilities were added later.
Hampden
Copper deposit first worked in 1884, future site of Kuridala.
Hann
Shire was the local government area for the Palmer River goldfield west of Cape Tribulation. When rural local government was established in 1879 the Hann division was proclaimed, with the divisional office at Maytown. The division experienced an extreme from a census population of over 6000 in 1881 to under 1000 ten years later. In 1919 Cooktown, Daintree Shire, and Hann Shire were amalgamated to form Cook Shire.
Haughton
Electorate created by the 1949 redistribution from portions of Mundingburra and Kennedy, the seat was renamed Burdekin in 1959 with slight changes to the boundaries.
Hay Point
Coastal locality at the southern end of Dalrymple Bay south-east of Mackay, the site for a massive coal-export terminal with a 1.5 kilometre wharf 1.5 km that opened in 1971. There is a similar facility at Dalrymple Bay.
Hayman
Island Resort on the most northerly of the Whitsunday Islands, 70 km east of Bowen named by Commander George Nares n 1864-67 after Thomas Hayman, Sailing Master.
Between 1906 and 1931 the island was used for grazing and the lease was transferred to Edwin Embury, a teacher who used the island as a base for scientific expeditions. In 1936 the lease was transferred to Whitsundays’ fishermen Bob and Bert Hallam, who established the Great Barrier Reef Game Fish Angling Club in 1935, attracting local and international game fishing enthusiasts who arrived by coastal steamer who established a rudimentary holiday resort.
Monty Embury had built a dining and recreation hall and a radio shack but accommodation had been mainly in tents. The Hallams added a number of twin-bedded galvanised-iron and fibro huts along the beach on the southern side of the island where the resort stands today and in November 1936 applied for and were granted a liquor licence.
In 1936 the author Zane Grey lived for a brief while at the island (actually on his boat Avalon) while shooting part of the film White Death. He left Sydney in the Manunda on May 5, 1936 with a staff of twenty who camped on the island until they left on 28 July 1936 (Proserpine Guardian 25 April 1936, 13 June 1936, 11 August 1936).
In 1947 the Ansett Airlines subsidiary, Barrier Reef Resorts, acquired the lease and, in anticipation of a Royal Visit, built the Royal Hayman Hotel resort. It catered for 120 guests and included a swimming pool, elaborate dining room and live evening entertainment. Access was by Catalina flying boat or by bus and launch from Mackay airport. Ansett's resort set the standard for Whitsunday resorts and while profits from luxury tariffs were initially weak, a tariff reduction gradually brought better results. Before 1060, when a dam was constructed behind the resort, water had been provided by collecting rainwater by wells, though the water obtained was not suitable for drinking, and by carrying water by barge from Bowen and North Molle Island.
In July 1985, a two-year, A$300 million project set out to transform the island into a luxury destination. The resort undertook another significant renovation in 2001. In June 2004 Mulpha Australia Limited acquired Hayman, and after six years of careful planning, design and environmental consultations, the island underwent another redevelopment. Hayman re-opened on 1 August 2011 after five months of extensive restoration due to the severe impact of Tropical Cyclones Anthony and Yasi earlier in the year.
Heatley
Residential suburb of Townsville, formally named in 1967, after Townsville mayor William J. Heatley, who held office between 1927 and 1933.
Herbert
Electorate created by the 1887 Electoral Districts Act, stretching from Cairns to Townsville and from the coast to the Tablelands. REdistributions meant that by 1935 it had shrunk to a coastal strip from Innisfail to Cardwell. The 1949 redistribution saw it transformed into the seat of Mourilyan.
River, the southernmost of Queensland's wet tropics river systems, named in 1864 by George Elphinstone Dalrymple, after Robert George Wyndham Herbert, the first Premier of Queensland. The river rises on the Atherton Tableland, west of Herberton and north of Ravenshoe, with two head streams (the Millstream and Wild River), flows in a generally southeastern direction before entering the Coral Sea near Lucinda, at the southern end of the Hinchinbrook Channel. Tributaries include Blunder, Sunday and Cameron Creeks, which all rise in the Cardwell Range and drain the northern portion of the river's catchment area, upstream of the Herbert River Falls.
Herberton
Former mining town west of Innisfail on the Wild River, a tributary of the Herbert River, that developed after John Newell, who had prospected in the Tinaroo district, and William Jack, guided by John Atherton, found a tin lode in 1880. Newell named the place Herberton, the mine was known as the Great Northern, and Newell and Jack's former employer, John Moffat, set about developing the mine. Moffat was already involved in tin smelting at Stanthorpe, and went on to develop mines at Irvinebank, Watsonville and Mount Garnet.
By 1885 Herberton's population was about 600, with six stores, a pharmacy, a saddler, two banks, three drapers, twelve hotels, and two newspapers, the Wild River Times and the Herberton Advertiser, Church of England, Catholic and Wesleyan churches, Masonic, Oddfellows, Good Templars, Jockey and Cricket clubs, the Tinaroo Divisional Board and the Tinaroo Progress Association.
The hinterland south of Herberton was originally part of Evelyn and Woodleigh pastoral stations, but Moffat purchased the land after valuable stands of cedar were found at Cedar Creek (Ravenshoe). He installed a sawmill (1898-99) and the remainder of the pastoral holding was subdivided for dairying.
Mining and smelting continued until 1978, while the town's population varied between 900 and 1100.
Minerals Area, west of Herberton, had an active life between 1880 and 1930. Its four main towns were Irvinebank, Montalbion, Stannary Hills and Watsonville.
Shire, south-west of Cairns that contained Herberton, Ravenshoe and Mount Garnet along with the former towns of Irvinebank and Tumoulin, amalgamated with Atherton, Eacham and Mareeba Shires in 2008 to form Tablelands Regional Council. Herberton borough was formed in 1888 and included in the Tinaroo division, which was was subdivided in 1895 with part of it becoming Herberton division.
Hermit Park
Residential suburb of Townsville and positioned between Charters Towers Road and Ross Creek. Robert Towns located his boiling down works in the area, and established a plantation to grow cotton and sugar. Leo Ferdinand Sachs, ex-manager of the Australian Joint Stock Bank, purchased the “Boiling Down Paddock” from Robert Towns' estate in 1877 and built a villa residence (The Lodge). The Avenue is the former entrance drive, and the gates now form the entrance to St Matthew’s Church at Rising Sun. Locals referred to The Lodge as ‘Eremite’ or ‘Hermit Park’, because it seemed to be isolated in the wilderness.
In 1884 a syndicate formed the Townsville Land and Investment Company to purchase the property, which was subsequently subdivided. Up to this point, access was from South Townsville through Queens Road. Access was easier after a stone causeway was built across wetland beside Monkey Island (The Causeway). Gradual urban growth saw Hermit Park transferred from Thuringowa Shire to Townsville City in 1918.
Hillock
Point, the east point of Hinchinbrook Island, named by Cook on 8 June 1770.
Hillsborough (Cape)
Coastal feature (a pretty high Promontory) named by James Cook after Viscount Hillsborough, Secretary of State for Colonies on 2 June 1770.
Hinchinbrook
Electorate created by the 1949 redistribution from parts of the Kennedy and Herbert electorates, centred on the Ingham-Tully coastal strip. A purely coastal electorate after 1991.
Island, the largest along the Great Barrier Reef and the largest island national park in Australia, named on 19 May 1819 by Phillip Parker King. The name Hinchinbrook links to a title held by the Montagu family, formerly Earls of Halifax. The island abuts Halifax Bay, named by James Cook in 1770.
Port resort and marina, about one kilometre south of Cardwell with travel connections to the Orchid Beach resort at the north of Hinchinbrook Island, houses, duplexes, apartments, and impending retail development, encountered considerable local opposition, but real estate promoters predicted Cardwell could become to Townsville what Noosa is to Brisbane or what Airlie Beach is to the Whitsundays.
Shire, centred on Ingham was named after Hinchinbrook Island, originally the Herbert River local government division, which had apopulation of around 300 when it was declared in 1879 . Several sugar mills were in operation by the 1880s, within reach of the wharf on the Herbert River at Halifax, which was, initially, the main settlement on the Lower Herbert. Ingham was connected by railway to Townsville in 1919, and the Shire's population nearly doubled between 1921 and 1933.
Hodgkinson
Minerals Area was centred on the abandoned towns of Kingsborough and Thornborough, on the Hodgkinson River, named by James Venture Mulligan in 1874 after William Hodgkinson, mining warden at Etheridge (1870) and Queensland parliamentarian. Mulligan set out on a second expedition to the area two years later, found gold and by April 1876 2000 were working the field. By 1877 both Kingsborough and Thornborough had populations in excess of 1000. Between them the towns had 20 hotels, 13 general stores and four butchers, with two banks and two jewellers in Thornborough. The opening of the Cairns-Mareeba rail line and the development of cyanide technology encouraged mining activity as Thornborough acquired a courthouse, hospital, school of arts and primary school. The Woothakata Shire offices remained there until they were moved to Mareeba in 1919. The shire was renamed Mareeba in 1947.
The relocation and renaming reflected a rapid decline in population on the field. From the twenty hotels the two centres boasted, by 1913 they were down to three in Kingsborough and two in Thornborough. Ten years later Thornborough was down to a single establishment (the Canton Hotel). A decade later there was no mining activity at Thornborough, and Kingsborough was gone.
The field might have been revived after the railway line from the Mount Mulligan coal mine to the Cairns-Chillagoe line at Dimbulah was opened in 1915, since the line went to Thornborough, but by then the most profitable reefs had been worked out.
Holbourn
Island, named by Cook on 4 June 1770 after Admiral Francis Holbourne, who commanded the North American fleet in which Cook served in 1757.
Holloways Beach
Residential suburb of Cairns named after landowner, William Holloway, who came to Cairns around 1910. The suburb lies between Richards and Barr Creeks, and the coast between them is uninterrupted beach.
Home Hill
Rural town south-east of Townsville and 11 km from Ayr, originally part of the Inkerman pastoral holding (1862). By the end of the century Inkerman was held by the North Australian Pastoral Company and the company was in trouble. A public meeting in Ayr in 1906 petitioned the Government to purchase the estate and subdivide it for cane farms. When the Government acceded to the request the local sugar processing magnate, John Drysdale, looking to protect his other operations from competition from a Government central mill, built the Inkerman mill. The farm lots went quickly when offered for sale in 1911. The town, designed by surveyor R.A. Suter and surveyed by Alfred Marshall, was sited beside a lagoon and originally known as Inkerman, then as named Holme Hill and eventually to Home Hill, allegedly due to a spelling mistake on the part of the young man sent to paint the name on the railway station.
Homebush
Rural township south-west of Mackay in an area initially taken up as a pastoral run in 1863. The pastoral boundaries were redefined in 1867, with a separate Homebush run established. Shortly thereafter sugar was introduced to the Pioneer Valley with plantations extending across the Pioneer flood plain. The success of the industry in the area encouraged Colonial Sugar Refineries to diversify from its more southerly interests and Homebush on Sandy Creek was chosen as the site of one of its two Queensland mills. The opened in 1883, but labour shortages through the 1890s persuaded CSR to lease its plantation land to small farmers, with an option to purchase. Slim profits raised doubts about the mill's viability, and it closed in 1921 with its machinery used elsewhere.
Homebush has an impressive hotel, the General Gordon, initially built in 1886 and a mission hall for South Sea Islanders, listed on the Queensland heritage register, in Homebush Road.
Hook
Largely uninhabited island in the Whitsunday Islands with two prominent geographical features on the southern side (Nara and Macona inlets, fjord-like recesses used as anchorages for the tourist fleet) while the northern coast is noted for colourful underwater coral growths which attract snorkelling and diving enthusiasts. A site at Nara Inlet is the oldest indication of Aboriginal occupation in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The only habitation on the island is the Hook Island Wilderness Resort. The underwater observatory on the island was closed due to health and safety issues.
Hope
Islands named by Lt James Cook in June 1770 just after the Endeavour struck the nearby Endeavour Reef.
Hope Vale
Aboriginal community north-west of Cooktown, originally a Lutheran mission (Hope Valley) at Cape Bedford founded in January of 1886 by Lutheran Missionary Johann Flierl. Most of the population come from the local Guugu Yimithirr people. Flierl was on his way to establish a mission in New Guinea but was held up in Cooktown and began work amongst the Guugu Yimithirr. He established himself on the Cape Bedford Aboriginal Reserve, choosing a spot on the beach north of Cape Bedford which he called Elim.
Hyde Park
Residential suburb of Townsville named after the Hyde Park estate, owned by William Clayton, a chemist, who established the Hyde Park brickworks north-west of the intersection of Bayswater and Charters Towers Roads in the mid-1880s.