Following the exploration and discovery of the Mackay district credited to John Mackay in 1860, very little of the original land was being used for cattle grazing within 20 years of that discovery. The first ton of sugar was made at Captain Louis Hope’s sugar plantation at Ormiston, Cleveland in September 1864.’

In the early days of sugar growing many individual steam mills sprang up to crush sugar for market. The Sugar and Coffee Regulations of 1864 accelerated the growth of the sugar industry in Mackay. One of the first plantations ‘Alexandra’ was owned by Thomas Henry Fitzgerald. In 1975 a disease called ‘rust’ devastated the sugar plantations and many went into receivership. The first central mill to be built at North Eton was closed in 1988. Sugar cane from Mia Mia went to North Eton Mill until the Mill closed.