Byron Bay postcode 2481, population and history

1

The Bundjalung and Cavvanbah

Byron Bay's postcode is 2481, and the town stands on country belonging to the Bundjalung Nation. The Arakwal, Minjungbal and Widjabul peoples have lived along this coast for at least 22,000 years. Those custodians hold that Nguthungulli created the land and its people, and that he rests at what is now called Julian Rocks.

The township area was known by the traditional name Cavvanbah, which means "meeting place". Wajung and Kabul are significant totems for the area. Cape Byron, the headland beside the town, is mainland Australia's easternmost point.

2

Cook's cape and the first settlers

In 1770 Lieutenant James Cook found safe anchorage here. He named Cape Byron after Vice Admiral John Byron, a fellow sailor known as "Foul-Weather Jack" who had sailed around the world and was the poet Lord Byron's grandfather.

Europeans settled the area in the 1830s. In the 1850s a massacre took place south of Suffolk Park, where the quarry stands today. In 1876 the poet Brunton Stephens wrote a poem in which cattle graze on Cape Byron's "mossy plains".

3

Cedar, gold and the jetty

The first industry in the town was cedar logging, cutting Australian red cedar, Toona ciliata. The timber trade gave many local names the word "shoot": Possum Shoot, Coopers Shoot and Skinners Shoot, places where cutters sent logs down the hills to ships waiting below. After World War I timber getting fell away, and many former timber workers became farmers.

In 1870 gold was found in Byron Bay. Up to 20 mining leases on Tallow Beach took gold from the black sands in the 1870s. A first jetty went up in 1886, the railway was connected in 1894, and in that year Cavvanbah became Byron Bay.

More land was cleared by dairy farmers, who settled the area. Butter went out from depots at Murwillumbah and Lismore.

4

Lighthouse, meatworks and sand mining

Cape Byron Lighthouse dates from 1901, on the most easterly point of the Australian mainland. Building it destroyed a ceremonial ground of Arakwal men, a significant site. Whaling continued until 1963, alongside the dairy factory, abattoirs, fishing and a sea port that was significant but hazardous.

In 1930 the first meatworks opened. The meat and dairy works gave off an appalling smell, and the slaughter of migrating whales each year in the 1950s and 1960s made things worse. Between the World Wars, sand mining for monazite (zircon, uranium and thorium) caused more damage to the environment. Mining stopped in 1968, and the processing ended in 1972.

5

Surfers, tourism and the land agreement

Longboard surfers reached the town in the 1960s, riding the breaks at The Pass, Wategos and Cosy Corner. The town began to draw travellers, and by 1973 it had a reputation as hippy, happy and alternative, the year the Aquarius Festival came to nearby Nimbin. Facilities for tourists were still minimal.

From the 1980s tourism developed in earnest. Surfers and hippies with little money were joined, and to a degree replaced, by wealthier arrivals, and shops and accommodation grew to suit their needs. Today the town still draws surfers, backpackers and general tourists, and has a broad mix of creative residents, including artists, craftspersons and musicians. Its newer hippy and new age character shows in shops of an alternative kind, in "spiritual" services, in meditation and yoga classes, and in "wellness" retreats.

Three Arakwal Elders lodged a native title claim in 1994. Seven years of negotiation followed, and in 2001 an Indigenous Land Use Agreement was reached with the State of New South Wales. It was the first of its kind in the country, a precedent for later agreements elsewhere in Australia, and two further local agreements followed.

6

Living in Byron Bay

Byron Bay is the biggest town in Byron Shire, though the shire's administrative centre is Mullumbimby. Cape Byron is a headland beside the town, and the Cape Byron Lighthouse stands on it. The town's heritage listings include the railway station on the Casino to Murwillumbah line, the post office at 61 Jonson Street and the lightstation on Lighthouse Road.

Sixteen shipwrecks are known in the bay and around it. The best known is the Wollongbar, which went down off the eastern tip of Belongil beach in bad conditions and rests about 150 metres from the coast, still visible above water at low tide. Visitors come for the natural attractions, and the town supports creative people such as artists, craftspersons and musicians, along with "new-age" shops, meditation and yoga classes and "wellness" retreats.