Etheridge railway line
The Etheridge Railway line, which branches off the Mareeba-to-Chillagoe railway at Almaden and heads south for to Forsayth via Mount Surprise and Einasleigh, was built between 1907 and 1910 by the Chillagoe Railway and Mining Company as a private railway line. The same company constructed the railway line from Mareeba to Chillagoe and Mungana between 1898 and 1901. The Etheridge line was built cheaply, with lighter rails and fewer earthworks than the Chillagoe line, to supply ore to the Chillagoe Company's under-utilised Chillagoe smelters. The Chillagoe Company was part of the business empire of John Moffat, and between 1880 and 1914 much of the economic activity of North Queensland was driven by the railways and mining towns created by Moffat's enterprises. The remaining built infrastructure at stations along the Etheridge Railway provides examples of the type of buildings erected by the Chillagoe Company for its railway network.
Ethridge, Tennessee
Ethridge began as a railroad stop known as Hudson Springs, which stood a few miles south of the present site of the town, in the 1880s. A political booster and store owner at the stop successfully petitioned the railroad to name the stop in honor of Emerson Etheridge, a prominent mid-19th century politician and post-Civil War candidate for governor. The current site of Ethridge, meanwhile, was located at the intersection of two mid-19th century cattle drovers' roads. When the railroad constructed a station at this site in the late 1890s, it was named Wayne Station. After constant confusion resulted in passengers bound for Wayne Station winding up at Ethridge, a prominent real estate broker in the area convinced the railroad to close the Ethridge stop and rename the Wayne Station stop "Ethridge."