Tully

Tully is a town and locality in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It is adjacent to the Bruce Highway approximately south of Cairns by road and north of Townsville. In the 2011 census, Tully had a population of 2,436 people.The Tully River (previously known as the Mackay River) was named after Surveyor-General William Alcock Tully in the 1870s. The town of Tully was named after the river when it was surveyed off when the sugar mill was erected in 1924. Previously a settlement known as Banyan had grown up on the other side of Banyan Creek during the previous decade.Tully is one of the larger towns of the Cassowary Coast Region. The economic base of the region is agriculture; sugar cane and banana being the dominant crops grown. The sugar cane grown at the many farms in the district is processed locally at the Tully Sugar Mill to give raw sugar which is shipped elsewhere for refinement.HistoryThe Tully River area was slowly settled once Cardwell, to the south, was established. The river was renamed in 1872 in honour of William Alcock Tully, then under-secretary for public lands and chief commissioner of crown lands in Queensland. The first settlers were the nephews of James Tyson who raised beef cattle. It was not until the government constructed a sugar mill in 1925 that the town began to develop.