 The structure was erected during a period of considerable building activity in Cairns, which occurred in the years immediately preceding the First World War.Cairns was established officially in October 1876 as a port to service the newly discovered Hodgkinson goldfields.In this first phase of Cairns' development there was a small flurry of building activity (mostly shanties and tent houses), but the town competed with both Cooktown and Port Douglas for the Hodgkinson trade, and made little progress until the establishment of a local sugar industry and the opening up of the Atherton Tablelands' mineral fields, in the early 1880s.