Cairns City, Queensland
Cairns City is the suburb at the centre of Cairns in the local government area of Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia. It can also be referred to as the Cairns Central Business District (CBD). In the 2011 census, the population of Cairns City was 2,737 people.
The name "Cairns" honours William Cairns, the Governor of Queensland from 1875 1877.
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.