Ifley
Gulf country station on Spear Creek, the head of the Norman River, taken up in 1865 by Earle Brothers. The property boasted a splendid waterhole, more than two miles long and very deep.
Ingham
Rural town located on Palm Creek close to the creek's junction with the Herbert River, about 25 km from the river's mouth. Ingham suffers major flooding when the Herbert peaks above 12 metres (as it did in 1971, 1986, 1991 and 2009). Henry Stone's Vale of Herbert Station near Abergowrie was the first settlement in the area. Gairloch Mill processed the district's first sugarcane in 1872, but only lasted a few seasons. William Bairstow Ingham arrived in the area in 1873, established 'Ings Plantation' using South Sea Islander labour and set about constructing a mill, but he became disheartened due to falling prices and rust disease, sold up and went to New Guinea in 1877, where he was killed by natives. When Ingham died the un-named settlement had a store, two hotels and a post and telegraph office and his surname was chosen as the name of the fledgling settlement as a mark of respect for someone who had been an explorer of the Lower Barron, Trinity Inlet and Port Douglas.
The township was surveyed in 1878 with allotments auctioned the following year. Several mills and plantations were established, including Victoria Mill north-east of Ingham, which crushed its first cane in 1883. In the early 1890s the Queensland Government arranged the recruitment of northern Italian settlers as an answer to the withdrawal of indentured South Sea Islands labour. Government policy included breaking up large sugar estates into family owned farms, which opened up opportunities for Italian settlers and miners moving from inland fields. Between 1892 and 1902 the area under sugar in the district increased by 85% to 3600 ha. The town's population nearly trebled between 1921 and 1933, despite a severe flood in 1927. Through the 1930s the district's agricultural production diversified into beef and dairy cattle, tobacco and winter vegetables for southern markets.
Inkerman
Rural settlement on the Bruce Highway 10 km south of the Burdekin River named after the pastoral station (1864) which presumably took its name from the battle in the Crimean War. The Inkerman run was plagued with the cattle tick in the mid-1890s, and sold to the Queensland Government in 1910 for farm subdivision.
Inlets
Bay of, a name used by Cook to describe the waters between Cape Palmerston and Cape Townshend "so named from the Number of Inlets, Creeks, etc., in it. The name has since disappeared from the charts.
Innisfail
Rural town south of Cairns at the junction of the North and South Johnstone Rivers, four kilometres from the river mouth with an economy based on sugar and bananas. Innisfail has often suffered cyclone damage, especially in 1918 and 2006. It owes its art deco buildings to the rebuilding after the 1918 cyclone.
Settlement of the area followed the discovery of Mourilyan Harbour by a party searching for survivors from the wreck of a brig on Bramble Reef and Dalrymple's North Coast expedition in 1873. Based on Dalrymple's report, Thomas Henry Fitzgerald's Fitzgerald and Co started the 'Innisfail' plantation at Johnstone River in 1880. Subscribers to the company included the Sisters of Mercy in Brisbane, backed by Catholic Bishop James Quinn. A town, initially known as The Junction or Nind's Camp (after Ninds Creek), grew around the estate. In 1882, the town was officially named Geraldton, after Fitzgerald, but renamed to avoid confusion with Geraldton in Western Australia in 1910. In the intervening period, the town was also known as Johnstone River.
The Johnstone local government division was formed from the northern portion of the Hinchinbrook division in 1881 with its administrative centre at Geraldton designated a police and court centre. By 1887, when the town gained a customs house and primary school there was a strong Chinese community, mostly miners displaced from the north's gold fields and tin mines. They introduced banana plantations and set up local businesses and built the first of two Joss Houses, pre-dating even the Catholic church. South Sea Islander indentured labour provided the initial workforce for the sugar industry, but when the Kanakas were repatriated from the 1890s, planters looked to the south of Europe for labour. Substantial Italian, Greek and Maltese communities developed in the town, maintaining the strength of the local Catholic church.
In 1892, the Mourilyan Sugar Company Mill opened on the South Johnstone River, and South Johnstone co-operative mill was opened in 1915 after a Government inquiry into the desirability of more central mills for Queensland's industry. It remained in Government control until 1927. 1915 also saw the Cairns railway was extended from Babinda to Innisfail, with a further connection to Cardwell and Townsville in 1923.
During the 1920s and 1930s, farms were cleared inland of Innisfail for dairy and beef production, and processing factories were established at Innisfail and Silkwood. Primary industry diversified further after World War II, with the development of large fishing and prawning fleets, exotic tropical fruit and Australia's only major tea supplier, Nerada, when the first tea factory opened in 1971. Sugar, however, remained pre-eminent, with a revamped Mourilyan Harbour acquiring bulk-loading facilities in 1960.
Irvinebank
Former mining town in the Herberton Minerals Area, first known as Gibbs Camp, founded in 1884 by John Moffat. Moffat had purchased mining leases from three prospectors, James Gibb, Andrew Thompson and James McDonald, who had found promising lodes in the catchment of Gibbs and McDonald Creeks. The Glen Smelting Company in Herberton, managed by John Moffat, acquired several of the tin shows on the headwaters of Eureka Creek to the north of the town, and silver and tin lodes along Gibbs Creek to the west. Moffat, an experienced and cautious entrepreneur, identified Gibbs Creek as a good location to centralise his operations, due to a drier climate west of the Divide, a good supply of water for smelting. In 1883-84, Glen Smelting opened a battery and smelters at Irvinebank, which took its name from Moffat's birthplace, a small village on the Irvine River in Ayrshire, Scotland. Moffat's residence, Loudoun House and the Loudoun Mill, both took their names from Ayrshire's Loudoun Parish.
Moffat gained ascendency over the Irvinebank community by willingly taking privately mined ore for his mill, encouraging efficient and uninterrupted production by paying his suppliers promptly. He also owned the Stannery Hills mine and acquired a controlling interest in the Vulcan mine discovered in 1888. In 1902, a tramway was built from Stannery Hills to the Mareeba-Chillagoe railway line and extended to Irvinebank in 1907. The extension put a strain on Moffat's finances and coincided with a fall in metal prices. There were retrenchments after Moffat's retirement in 1912, and in 1919, the battery, smelter and tramway were sold to the Queensland Government as a State enterprise.
Irvinebank was the administrative centre of Walsh Shire from about 1902 until the shire was absorbed by Mareeba Shire in 1932. The local doctor had an astronomical observatory and a skating rink under his house. His death from influenza in 1919 symbolised the coming decline of Irvinebank through the next two decades. The tramline was closed in 1936, and the lines pulled up to be reused in 1941. Irvinebank website
Isaac
Regional Council south-west of Mackay, formed in 2008 by the amalgamation of Belyando, Broadsound and Nebo Shires, and named after the Isaac River which rises near Moranbah and runs generally south-east to join the Fitzroy River system. The river was named by Leichhardt after Frederick Isaac, proprietor of the Gowrie pastoral run on the Darling Downs.
Isaac Regional Council's administrative centre, Moranbah, was Belyando Shire's headquarters and is near the middle of the council area. Council offices are maintained in Clermont (Belyando), Dysart (Broadsound), Glenden (Nebo), Middlemount, Nebo and St Lawrence (Broadsound), with Council meetings rotated through these centres as well as Coppabella and Flaggy Rock.
The region had spectacular population growth during the 1960s and 1970s as coal deposits were exploited by mines in Glenden, Dysart, Middlemount and Moranbah. A railway network was built to carry coal to the Hay Point terminal near Mackay. The line from Hay Point to Goonyella was opened in 1971, and branches were added to Blair Athol (1983) and the Gregory mines (1972-82). The Gregory mine was also linked to the Central line to Rockhampton in 1980.