Cairns Airport
Cairns Airport is an international airport in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Formerly operated by the Cairns Port Authority, the airport was sold by the Queensland Government in December 2008 to a private consortium. It is the seventh busiest airport in Australia. The airport is located north northwest of Cairns or north of the Cairns central business district, in the suburb of Aeroglen. The airport lies between Mount Whitfield to the west and Trinity Bay to the east.
History of Cairns
After five years of competition from the already established town of Port Douglas and the nearby settlement of Smithfield, Cairns became secure, with a series of successful agricultural ventures by Chinese businessmen and labourers frustrated with the overworked northern goldfields. Three Englishman, George Clayton, Thomas Hill and Thomas Swallow developed thousands of acres of crop plantations to the south and east of the Cairns settlement. By 1885, there were sufficient local population base and social organisation for the borough of Cairns to be declared a municipality and for aldermen to elect their first mayor, R. A. Kingsford.
Construction of a railway line from Cairns to Herberton in 1886 brought many immigrant workers (predominantly Italian and Irish) to the area. These new residents, in turn, generated demand for opening up land to be used for agriculture, with a predominance of sugar cane on the lowlands, and fruit and dairy on the tableland. This increased the importance of Cairns as a regional centre. Conscious of its new status, Cairns aldermen were persuaded to upgrade street lighting, considered a luxury at the time.