Townsville was founded in 1864 by John Melton Black and Robert Towns and other employees of Woodstock Station three years after the first settlers arrived in northern Queensland and formed Bowen.
The reason for the settlement at Townsville, which is today the largest city in northern Queensland with a population of around 150,000 people, was reportedly to provide a base for workers who could not reach Bowen whenever the Burdekin River was flooded.
However Townsville, which would later be twinned with the city of Thuringowa and which is situated less than 2,000 kilometres north of Brisbane, would quickly outgrow the town of Bowen.
The rapid growth of Townsville was in no small part due to the discovery in the next 10 years of gold at Ravenswood and Charters Towers, the mining of which would bring not only an influx of people to the area but also wealth.
In 1882 the first railway in northern Queensland was opened, the Great Northern Railway which operated between Townsville and Charters Towers. However it was another 42 years before the building of the line from Brisbane to Cairns, which stops in Townsville.
Another important development in the history of Townsville was the building of its man-made harbour, work which was completed in 1892 and opened up another means of transport to the area.
Townsville, said to have been where the first Australian standard was made and flown, provides a passage to the far north of the country and the Northern Territory to the west and is also home to large Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal communities.