Mareeba is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Mareeba in Far North Queensland, Australia.
Mareebais a rural town and locality in the Shire of Mareeba in Far North Queensland, Australia.Between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Tablelands Region. The town's name is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning meeting of the waters.
History
Prior to European settlement, the area around Mareeba was inhabited by the Muluridji people. 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 State School opened on 28 August 1893.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 Diocee of Cairns) was established in 1911.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.Mareeba Library opened in 1958. It underwent a major refurbishment in 1985.Mareeba State High School opened on 25 January 1960.Mareeba is also home to an Albanian Australian community that dates from the interwar period. Built by local Albanian Australians, the Mareeba Mosque was opened on Anzac Day, 1970 and is dedicated to Australian soldiers who lost their lives in war.On 24 January 2006 St Stephen's Catholic College opened after a nearly 10-year approval process regarding the provision of Catholic secondary education.At the 2006 census, Mareeba had a population of 6,806.In the 2011 census, Mareeba had a population of 10,181 people.In October 2011, most of the land (209 hectares; 516 acres) of the former state farm / research station at Kairi was sold by the Queensland Government, retaining only 26 hectares (65 acres). The sale of the land was to fund the establishment of the Agri-Science Hub at Peters Street in Mareeba. The hub focusses on agricultural research and development, together with education and training. James Cook University is a partner of the hub, researching tropical agriculture, aquaculture and biosecurity. The hub opened on 16 December 2011.According to the 2016 census, Mareeba includes the largest Italian Australian community of any suburb in Queensland, numbering 1,608 individuals and making up 10.8% of the town's population.
Weather
Mareeba has a tropical savanna climate (Aw). Mareeba township's tagline reads "300 sunny days a year" because the town is in what is called a rain shadow and is sunnier than the wetter surrounding areas. Though despite its reputation as a sunny place, it only receives 61.8 clear days annually and 59.5 cloudy days.
Things to do
Tourist attractions in the Mareeba Shire include the Golden Drop Mango Winery, Jaques Coffee Plantation, Coffee Works, Mareeba Heritage Museum, Mareeba Rock Wallabies and Granite Gorge Nature Park, Emerald Creek Falls, and Davies Creek Falls.