Central Sugar Mill Ruins

Remnants of the 1866 Central Sugar Mill can be found within a new rural residential estate at the end of Mary View Drive at Yengarie. The large brick chimney dominates the site that includes remnant sugar vats and manager’s house, a lagoon and a tramway cutting to the river. The complex was built by Frederick Gladwell and Robert Greathead. They were inspired by a lecture from Queensland sugar pioneer, John Buhot, who visited Maryborough in 1864, and they employed him to design their operation. In 1866, tenders were called for the erection of mill buildings. Machinery was transported from Sydney and wharves built on the river, linked to the mill by tramway. An industrial accident led to production difficulties followed by financial foreclosure in late 1867. New owner, John Meiklejohn, installed new machinery and a distillery from mid-1868. William Gibson, operator of the Clydesdale Mill at Hemmant in Brisbane, purchased the mill in 1889. By 1877, Central Mill operated as a juice mill, with juice sent to Tooth and Cran’s nearby Yengarie Mill for refining until the mid-1880s. Gibson sold to Tooth and Cran and relocated to Bingera. Like Yengarie, this property was subsequently used for cattle grazing.