Palmer River

Gold Dredge at Palmer River

Template: Infobox River / Obsolete

The Palmer River is a river in the north of the Australian state of Queensland. It is located in the region of Far North Queensland.

Geography

River

The river is formed about 100 km south-southwest of Cooktown in the Sussex Range in the Atherton Tablelands, which belong to the Great Dividing Range, from the headwaters Prospect Creek, and Campbell Creek. From there it flows to the west, crosses under the Mulligan Highway at Palmer River Roadhouse and crosses the Palmer River Goldfields Resources Reserve. Then he continues on his way through sparsely populated regions. Approx. 30 km west of the settlement Drumduff it flows into the Mitchell River.

Tributaries with muzzle heights

• Prospect Creek - 429 m
• Campbell Creek - 429 m
• Spear Creek - 402 m
• Blackfellow Creek - 387 m
• Palmer Little River - 370 m
• Doughboy Creek - 366 m
• South Palmer River - 350 m
• Granite Creek - 325 m
• North Palmer River - 224 m
• Cradle Creek - 209 m
• Sandy Creek - 208 m
• Fish Creek - 201 m
• Fernhill Creek - 176 m
• Terrible Creek - 176 m
• Creek Station - 171 m
• Burnell Creek - 167 m
• Big Creek - 159 m
• Twelve Mile Creek -155 m
• Fox Creek - 153 m
• Stewart Creek - 148 m
• Arkara Creek - 137 m
• Terrible Creek - 135 m
• Aralba Creek - 129 m
• King River - 120 m
• Eliza Creek - 117 m
• Fish Creek - 105 m
• Telephone Creek - 85 m
• Yellow Creek - 79 m
• Jimmy's Creek - 66 m

Fields of the Palmer River

In the 19th century gold rush took place at headwaters of the Palmer River, which began in 1872. Meanwhile, most of alluvial gold was collected, but there are still some deeper mines in the area. The most important settlement in the gold fields was Maytown.

Among the miners, there were many Chinese, mainly from Guangdong Province in southern China. Also, there were several occasions confrontations between the settlers and the Aborigines of the area, eg at Battle Camp.