Plantations developed in the Cleveland, Beenleigh, and Caboolture districts and new areas along the coast quickly opened up including by the 1870s in the Maryborough, Bundaberg, and Mackay districts with sugar refining beginning on a small scale with the opening of the Yengarie sugar mill near Maryborough in 1873 and later the Millaquin refinery at Bundaberg in 1882.

Moreover, encouraged by Queensland Premier Thomas McIlwraith, southern capital and advanced technology was beginning to reach northern plantations.

CSR's monopoly was defended through the imposition of prohibitive intercolonial import duties on sugar products (in particular increases in taxes on syrup and molasses in the late nineteenth century) which would otherwise have had substantially compromised CSR's share in the golden syrup market in Queensland.

The Victorian Sugar Company Refinery (built c. 1857) burnt down in 1875, so CSR took over the Joshua Bros. Yarraville site.

Other structures include the Retail Packing Station; c.1880 with its distinctive timber framed structural system; the former Melting House, 1902 which has a prefabricated cast iron internal frame; the Golden Syrup and Treacle Packing Store, 1880s with cast iron columns and timber beams, which housed a CSR designed Golden Syrup filling machine; and the Power House with gas engines and generators.