public estate works

Queensland public estate improvements, 1937. This map appeared in the annual report of the Land Administration Board and shows ‘improvements’ to the Queensland public estate made in 1937. Many of the ‘works in progress’ were facilitated by unemployment relief funds made available under the Income (Unemployment Relief) Tax Acts, 1930 to 1935. Works included building a road between Amity Point and Point Lookout on Stradbroke Island as well as new forestry access roads in northern Queensland: the Kirrama Range Road, Kuranda-McKenzie’s Pocket-Black Mountain Road and Robson’s Creek Road at Danbulla. Relief Funds were also used to fill in ‘unsightly’ swamps around coastal cities and towns. Land reclamation schemes were conducted around Cairns, Sandgate and Coolangatta. Major works such as these demonstrate how the Depression was a time of both survival and profound alteration to Queensland’s cultural landscape. Queensland parliamentary papers, vol 2, 1937