Gordonvale lies approximately 23 kilometres (14 mi) south of the Cairns central business district and is just east of the Gillies Range which leads to the Atherton Tableland.

[4] The Bruce Highway enters the locality from the south-east (Aloomba), bypasses the town centre to the west and then proceeds north to exit to Wrights Creek.

[4][5] The town is served by the Gordonvale railway station which is located immediately adjacent to the sugar mill.

[5] There is an extensive network of cane tramways through the locality and beyond that deliver harvested sugarcane to the Mulgrave Sugar Mill.

[6] British settlement began in 1877 with William Saunders Alley and Mr Blackwell and their families who cut a road through to Trinity Inlet so they could haul out cedar logs.

On 24 January 1914 the town was officially renamed Gordonvale after John Gordon, a pioneer in the district who was a butcher, dairyman and grazier, and early director of Mulgrave Central sugar mill.

It was a snowball march to recruit men into the First Australian Imperial Force during World War I at a time when enthusiasm to enlist had waned after the loss of life in the Gallipoli campaign.

The march began at Mooliba with 4 men, passing through Babinda, Aloomba, Gordonvale, and Edmonton, and ending in Cairns 60 kilometres later with 29 recruits.

[10] On Sunday 15 July 1934, the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Filippo Bernardini laid the foundation stone for a new Catholic Church.

In June 1935 the Queensland Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations imported 102 cane toads (Bufo marinus) into Gordonvale from Hawaii in June 1935 (with one dying in transit due to dehydration) in the belief that the toads would eat the cane beetles, a pest in the sugarcane industry.

By March 1937 some 62,000 toadlets had been bred and distributed into sugar cane fields up and down the Queensland coast.

[21] During World War II, a contingent of approximately 3,000 American paratroopers was stationed in Gordonvale and did their training there for their missions in New Guinea.

The American Army commandeered some of the town's hotels to use as hospitals as many troops were injured during this training.

[27][28] In the 1990s, a number of mosaics were commissioned by the "Friends of Gordonvale" commemorating through imagery the original businesses and shops in the town.

moved to premises at the Cairns Seventh Day Adventist Church at 302 Gatton Street, Manunda.

The new police station cost $4.5 million and was built to serve the growing population in the corridor south of Cairns.

It features Indigenous artwork "Looking to the Stars" by Gilimbaa artist Jenna Lee of the Larrakia people.

[43] About 25% of the students are boarders coming from the Torres Strait Islands, Cape York Peninsula, and remote areas in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

[47] The school's mission is "to develop proud, strong, educated Indigenous men and women, who walk confidently in two worlds, to be leaders, and to be role models for their families and communities".

[58] Operating since 1896, the Mulgrave Sugar Mill is located near the town centre in Gordon St.

The mill services about 300 sugarcane farms in the local region and operates during the 'crush' season (about six months of the year).

The museum has a number of historical items donated from the local community and displays that represent the early gold miners, cedar cutters, Chinese workers and packers (mule train suppliers to the Atherton Tableland).

[60][61] The suburb is surrounded predominantly by sugarcane fields and is only a short drive from many places including the Bellenden Ker National Park and Goldsborough Valley State Forest.