mission beach...

...originally the land of the Djiru Aboriginal people.
Hunters, fishers and gatherers and masters of canoe and raft making the Djiru had contacts with early navigators, surveyors and beche-de-mer fisherman long before the European and Chinese settlement in 1882.

The Mission...The Hull River Aboriginal Settlement...was established in 1914 and continued until 1918 when destroyed by a cyclone in 1918.

Never a 'mission' in the religious sense, it was set up to 'resolve' the conflict between colonial settlers and the Aboriginal people whose land was being appropriated and whose labour on banana and sugar plantations was often 'rewarded' by payment of rum and opium.
The Hull River Settlement was to be the answer to social problems by relocating Aboriginal people to this then (and still) remote place.

The Mission Beach name came from this Aboriginal Settlement known within the community as The Mission.

Scratch the surface of beauty and there is sometimes a darker layer.