Description

Surfers Paradise is a suburb on Australia's Gold Coast in Queensland. Colloquially known as 'Surfers', the suburb is famous for its many high-rise apartment buildings and wide surf beach. The central feature of the Surfers Paradise is Cavill Mall, which runs through the centre of the main shopping precinct.

History 

James Beattie, a farmer (and no relation to former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie) became the first European to settle in the Surfers Paradise area when he staked out an 80 acre farm on the northern bank of the Nerang River, close to the location of present-day Cavill Avenue. The farm proved unsuccessful and was sold in 1877 to German immigrant Johann Meyer, who turned the land into a sugar farm and mill. Meyer also had little luck growing in the sandy soil and within a decade had auctioned off the farm and started a private ferry service and built the Main Beach hotel as tourist attractions. By 1889 Meyer's hotel had become an official postal receiving office and the subdivisions surrounding it were given the name Elston, named by the Southport Postmaster Mr Palmer after his wife's home village in Nottingham, England. The Main Beach Hotel licence lapsed after Meyer's death in 1901 and for the next 16 years Elston was a tourist town without a hotel or post office.

In 1917, a land auction was held by Brisbane real estate company Arthur Blackwood Ltd, who were trying to sell subdivided blocks in Elston as the 'Surfers' Paradise Estate', but the auction failed because access to the area was still too difficult. This was the first recorded reference to the Surfers Paradise name, but like the Gold Coast, the title may well have been part of local vernacular prior to the land auction.

Elston began to get considerably more visitors after the opening of the Jubilee Bridge in 1925 and the extension of the South Coast Road; the area was serviced until that time only by Meyer's Ferry at the Nerang River. Suddenly, Elston was no longer cut off by the river and speculators began buying up land around the villages of Elston, and Burleigh Heads. Estates down the coast were heavily promoted and hotels began opening to accommodate both tourists and investors.

Brisbane hotelier Jim Cavill opened the Surfers Paradise Hotel that same year, and suddenly the town had its first real landmark. Located between the ferry jetty and the white surf beach just off the South Coast Road, it became a popular spot and various shops and services sprang up around it. In the following years Cavill led a push to have the name Elston changed to the more marketable Surfers' Paradise and in 1933 his lobbying paid off and the town officially acquired its present name.

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