Tinaroo
Located on the border between Buluwai, Ngatjan and Yidinji country, around thirteen kilometres northeast of Atherton, twenty-three kilometres southeast of Mareeba and about forty kilometres southwest of Cairns in the Tablelands Region the township of Tinaroo Falls is the hub of the rural locality that reputedly owes its name to the cry of successful prospectors: Tin! Huroo! John Atherton found traces of the mineral in Tinaroo Creek in the late 1870s.
The Tinaroo Range defined the Atherton Tablelands' northwestern boundary, so the area's first local government authority was named the Tinaroo Division. Established in 1880, it incorporated parts of what later became the Eacham and Mareeba Shires. It was renamed Atherton Shire in 1935.
Lake Tinaroo, created by the impoundment of the Barron River in Queensland's first large dam for irrigation purposes, also serves as a reservoir for waters to power the Barron Falls hydroelectric plant. Around six hundred kilometres of distribution channels carry water from the dam to Mareeba, Dimbulah, Biboohra and beyond, irrigating over a thousand properties spread over more than fifty thousand hectares.
When work began on the dam in 1955, the township that accommodated around seven hundred workers and their families had meeting, recreation, and medical facilities, a shopping centre, a school, and a police station. Some of these survived after work on the dam was completed in 1958 to form the basis of the current settlement. The school, which closed in December 1959, became the Tinaroo Environmental Education Centre in 1987.
Missing Links:
Tinaroo Creek
John Atherton
Tinaroo Range
Tinaroo Division
Atherton Shire
Lake Tinaroo
Barron Falls hydroelectric plan
Tinaroo Environmental Education Centre
