History
ABORIGINAL HISTORY
The Cooktown area has been home to a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clans for up to 40,000 years. Many now reside in Cooktown or the Aboriginal communities of Hopevale or Wujal Wujal and continue to have a close spiritual connection with their country.
EUROPEAN HISTORY
In 1770, the British Lieutenant, James Cook was forced to land his damaged ship after crossing the Great Barrier Reef.
The repair took 48 days, during which time Cook and his crew discovered and named many endemic species of local fauna and flora, including the Kangaroo.
Very little happened in the area until just over 100 years later when in 1873 , gold was found at the Palmer River and Cooktown was established to serve as the port for the goldfields. It was, at one time the second largest port in Queensland with over 30,000 people seeking their fortune or merely surviving in this this exotic location.
