page_title: Cooks Monument and Reserve
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cooks Monument and Reserve / History
context_page_description: Cooks Monument and Reserve is a heritage-listed memorial at Charlotte Street, Cooktown, Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. It was designed in the office of the Queensland Colonial Architect and built by Hobbs and Carter in 1887. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 30 April 1997.
context_section_description: The Cook Monument at Cooktown was erected in 1887 by Hobbs and Carter of South Brisbane, to designs prepared in the office of the Queensland Colonial Architect, George St Paul Connolly.
  Cooktown had been established in September 1873 as the Endeavour River port for the Palmer River goldfields. By the mid-1880s it was serving one of the most significant goldfields in Queensland. A railway was constructed from Cooktown to Laura between 1884 and 1888, further opening the port to development. By the late 1880s Cooktown had become the important centre not only of a thriving mining district (boosted by the 1887 discovery of tin along the Annan River), but also of pearling, beche-de-mer, and pastoral activity. After 1885, Cooktown was also the main port for Queensland trade with New Guinea.
  In May 1886, the then Premier of Queensland, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, travelled to Cooktown and other northern ports on a tour of inspection, partly associated with defence issues, more with political strategy. The Separation movement was gaining momentum in Townsville and the far north, and Griffith was keen to demonstrate his government's commitment to, and concern for, northern Queensland. The Cooktown Municipal Council at this time was seeking to commemorate James Cook's encampment at the Endeavour River in the winter of 1770, and it appears that Griffith, as political expediency, committed the Colonial Architect's office to designing the Cook monument at Cooktown.
  The Cooktown Municipal Council had intended that the monument include a statue of James Cook, but when tenders were called in June 1886, then again in September 1886 and February 1887 with different materials specified, they were for the column only. In December 1887 Sir Samuel Griffith re-visited Cooktown, and when requested by the mayor to provide assistance in commissioning the statue, refused, stating that it was more important to commemorate the event than the person.
  The contract had been let in February 1887 to Hobbs and Carter of South Brisbane, with a price of £1,059 and completion time of 8 months. It appears that the memorial was not constructed on the site originally proposed, which necessitated an additional foundation, bringing the final cost to £1,297. The foundation stone was laid on 1 September 1887 by the Mayor of Cooktown, John Savage, and the work had been completed by January 1888. Sandstone used in the construction came from Murphys Creek in southeast Queensland, and it was reputedly the first stone structure erected in Cooktown.
  Around the monument, a small (1.5 acres (0.61 ha)) reserve for municipal purposes was gazetted in June 1888. A brick-lined town well, believed to have been built by the Cooktown Municipal Council to service ships berthed at the nearby Cooktown wharves, was constructed in the reserve, south of the monument. This work probably was undertaken post-1888, as the Council filled in much of the Cook Monument Reserve in 1889. A small vertical boiler engine pumped water from the well to the wharves through a 3" diameter pipe. It is understood that the well has also supplied adjacent Charlotte Street businesses from time to time.
  In the 20th century, several other memorials were erected within the reserve:
  Kennedy Memorial: a granite cairn erected in 1948 to honour British explorer Edmund Besley Court Kennedy, who was killed by Aborigines on Cape York Peninsula (part of Cook Shire) in December 1848. Kennedy's exploratory work helped to open far north Queensland to pastoral settlement in the mid-19th century. The memorial was unveiled on 25 September 1948 by the Chair of the Cook Shire Council, Mayor WCH Hodges.
  National Horse Trail Marker: a small granite cairn erected in August 1977 to mark the beginning of the National Horse Trail from Cooktown to Melbourne, and the epic ride of Dan Seymour, who in the early 1970s demonstrated the feasibility of such a trail. The trail was mapped between 1974 and the 1980s, when it was made a bi-centennial project. Sections are used regularly, but few people have ridden the full distance. The marker wa
caption: Original design of the monument included a statue of Cook at the top
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