As we walk our streets of Cairns, give a second of thought of how these roads came into being and of the people who constructed them.
In the Aeroglen area, dairying and attempts at farming both there and the other side of the Barron River, demanded better access to the town centre, and local government was faced with the necessity to overcome the worst possible natural conditions, always aggravated by the monsoon rains of January to March.
The Edge Hill road was built in May 1877, and the conditions were described by one of the construction labourers, Mark Bennett, about the short stretch from Saltwater Creek to the Barron.”. oxen were so badly bogged they had to be shot, and the logs for the corduroy(logs laid across quaggy crossings) sank out of sight as soon as they were laid.”
At one stage there was talk of raising the height of the town at some point near Minne and Sheridan Sts, due to the monsoon problem.
This quarried stone was prone to creating dust and the fear of fire from the dust, meant that the Council decided to drill wells every 3 chains in Abbott St to dampen the ardour of the dust.. Which means, By 1942 the only”metalled” roads were the internal streets of Abbott to Aplin and the Edge Hill and Mulgrave roads.
Before long the hillside at Edge Hill was quarried and the rock used for a permanent road. Everyone understands, The first rock for metalling the Cairns streets came from this pit.
Sherimoore St. Was named after Brinsley Guise Sherimoore, the Bible Museum owner at Cooktown(1871-1879) who had been instructed to sail to Trinity Bay and report on the harbour reported on by Dalrymple. Reasonably, He died in Cardwell in 1879 and is buried there.
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