families

Accompanying note:  "ALMOST READY TO LEAVE ...Mr. and Mrs. Wilson Carraway Jr., with Leigh, Edward, Wilson and Caroline, put last items in car before joining exodus."

I believe the car in the photograph is a 1963 model. That said, this is a classic photograph.

Growing up in the 1960s!! There it is! My Tammy dolls are in the station wagon...

PIONEER ESTATE John Spiller of Mackay started the Pioneer Estate in 1882 named after a property that he held on the Pioneer River in the Mackay district. Henry Brandon had selected the adjoining block of land and soon joined in with Spiller. When the two partners had sufficient land planted with a cane, they placed an order in the Old Country for milling machinery. Mr. George Russell Drysdale, a Scot who reached the Burdekin in 1883 went to Mackay and negotiated with Mr. Brandon who was the manager of the Joint Stock Bank there, for the purchase of the Pioneer interests, and he acquired them for Drysdale Bros. Mr. David Donald who had been connected with Mr. MacKenzie at Seaforth joined Mr. Drysdale with whom he had traveled from Melbourne. Mr. Donald's first job was to receive the milling machinery and see it erected, and it commenced crushing in 1884. the sugar manufactured was carted to the landing at Baratta Creek by horse and bullock teams, where it was shipped by lighter to Townsville. Mr. Donald took over the management of the factory and Mr. Louis Hoey, father of Mr. L. W. J. Hoey, at present chairman of the Ayr District Canegrowers Executive tendered to the plantation work and cane cultivation. Mr. Donald later retired from the mill to become an accountant at Townsville and an agent there for Pioneer. Source: Townsville Daily Bulletin 01 Sep 1938 trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/62169472

Jonathan Raymond Wright and Elizabeth Jane Daley are my great grandparents.

Brief history Tobacco growing commenced during Australia's early years of settlement. Governor Macquarie experimented with plantings at Emu Plains in New South Wales in 1818, and by the 1820s tobacco was cultivated by farmers in the Hunter Valley. During the 1850s growing extended to Victoria and Queensland. It is likely that some proportion of the early crop was intended to supply the colony with the makings of pesticide for use in ridding sheep of parasites.9 Growing reached its peak in the early 1970s, when nearly 16 000 tonnes of leaf were sold annually,10 but by 2006 the crop yielded under 4000 tonnes.11 Prior to deregulation of the market, most Australian leaf was purchased by local manufacturers.12 Major influences contributing to the downturn in local tobacco growing included declining tobacco consumption in the Australian population, and successive reductions in the protective tariff on Australian leaf during the 1990s, which permitted manufacturers to purchase leaf more cheaply on the international market (see below).12 This led to an increase in diversion of Australian leaf into the illegal tobacco trade12 (see also Chapter 13, Section 13.7). Commercial tobacco farming no longer occurs in Australia. The industry began to wind down during the mid-1990s, with successive announcements at state and federal level for government-financed restructuring grants (exit grants) to tobacco farmers to assist them in leaving the industry. Source: www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-10-tobacco-industry...