Mareeba: History
Prior to European settlement, the area around Mareeba was inhabited by the Muluridji people, who spoke a Guugu Yalandji dialect. They maintained a hunter/gatherer existence in the area between Mount Carbine, Mareeba, Rumula (near Julatten) and Woodville (near Canoona), mainly concentrated between Biboohra and Mount Molloy. In the local Aboriginal language, Mareeba means meeting of the waters - referring to the point at which the Barron River is joined by Granite Creek.
On 26 May 1875, James Venture Mulligan became the first European officially to see the future site of Mareeba when he rode up the eastern bank of the Barron River, and passed the junctions of Emerald Creek and Granite Creek.
The Mareeba area was first settled by Europeans in 1877 by John Atherton, who arrived with cattle at Emerald End, which is just north of the town today. Mareeba quickly became a busy coach stop for Cobb & Co on the road from Port Douglas to Herberton. When the railway arrived in 1893, Mareeba grew into a busy town.
Mareeba Post Office opened on 25 August 1893 (a receiving office named Granite Creek had been open from 1891). A Mareeba Diggings Post Office opened by 1893 and closed in 1905.
Mareeba Provisional School opened on 28 August 1893 with 46 students under head teacher Denis Horan; by December that year, there were 96 students. It became Mareeba State School on 1 January 1899. In 1940, it was designated a Rural School, meaning that it taught more practical skills needed by farming families, such as agriculture for boys and needlework for girls.
St Thomas of Villanova Catholic School opened on 1 January 1909. St Thomas' celebrated their centenary in 2009. The Mareeba parish of the Roman Catholic Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown (now the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cairns) was established in 1911.
Ambulance services commenced in Mareeba in 1922 with an honorary ambulance officer issued with a first-aid kit. In 1942, Mareeba acquired a rail ambulance to transport patients by train. It was one of the last rail ambulances in Queensland with its last patient transported in 1983.
From 1942 to 1945 during World War II, up to 10,000 Australian and US service personnel used Mareeba Airfield as a staging post for battles in New Guinea and the South West Pacific theatre. The Americans referred to it as Hoevet Field in honour of Major Dean Carol "Pinky" Hoevet who was killed on 16 August 1942. Units that were based at Mareeba included No. 5 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), No. 100 Squadron RAAF, the Australian 33rd Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, the 19th Bomb Group of the United States Army Air Forces ( USAAF), the 43rd Bomb Group USAAF and the 8th Fighter Group USAAF. For a period of two years during World War II, Mareeba State School was taken over by the army, so St Thomas’ Catholic School accommodated the entire school population of Mareeba.
In 1949, Mareeba State School expanded to offer secondary schooling with an initial enrolment of 17 students. In 25 January 1960, Mareeba State High School opened as a dedicated secondary school and Mareeba State School resumed its role as a primary school.
Mareeba Library opened in 1958. It underwent a major refurbishment in 1985.
Mareeba is also home to an Albanian Australian community that dates from the interwar period. …