Mirani railway station, Queensland 1.5

Mirani railway station is a heritage-listed former railway station at Victoria Street, Mirani, Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1885 to 1913. It is also known as Hamilton railway station. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 7 July 2005.HistoryThe Mirani railway station opened on 10 August 1885. The station formed part of the Pioneer Valley Line of the Mackay Railway which opened on the same day. In search of new pastoral land, John Mackay and his party entered and named the valley of the Mackay River in 1860 (renamed Pioneer River in 1862), and the following year he returned to establish a cattle station. Other settlers quickly followed. In 1862, the ketch "Presto" entered the Mackay River landing stores and building materials, then surveyed the river mouth, which consequently was gazetted as a Port of Entry.In the earliest years of non-Indigenous settlement of the Pioneer Valley, the area was leased as two cattle runs, Hamilton and Hopetoun. They were worked as one property with the head station at Hamilton, across the Pioneer River from the township now known as Mirani. Prior to the opening of the railway station in 1885, Mirani was known as Hamilton, after one of the cattle properties, but was changed so that no confusion could arise between it and Hamilton in Brisbane.