Young investigated routes for an overland telegraph line between Cardwell and Normanton, which was built between 1869 and 1872, and later became a lifeline for the northern mining fields.

Pastoralists followed these early explorers, bringing sheep in 1865, but by 1867 many had retreated because of fever, drought, low wool prices and distance from markets.

However, it was not until 1885 that Richard and Walter Alldridge, acting under instructions from W.C. Brown, prospected the area and discovered twenty payable reefs.

The finds were reported in October 1885, and the Croydon area was proclaimed a goldfield on 18 January 1886, thus coming under administration of the Mines Department.

[1] Residents at Croydon goldfields faced many hardships from inadequate supplies of water, pasture grasses and timber for fuel and construction purposes.

Industrial action in 1888 resulted in the formation of a branch of the Amalgamated Miners' Association, and a strike occurred in 1889 when mining companies again tried to lower wages.

A financial setback occurred in the "crash" of 1893, when most banks closed doors and gold buying ceased, throwing many miners out of work.

[1] As on many other Queensland goldfields, Croydon had a Chinese community which developed on the north west fringe of the town.

This figure is surprising given that the Queensland Goldfields Amendment Act of 1878 excluded Chinese people from new fields for three years unless they had made the discovery.

[1] The fields developed with Croydon as the main administrative and commercial centre surrounded by "satellite" communities established at outlying reefs.

Members of the outlying communities would visit Croydon on Saturday nights to shop, conduct their business and socialise.

There were townships at Golden Gate, Tabletop, Gorge Creek, Golden Valley, Goldstone, Carron, Twelve Mile, and campsites at Homeward Bound, Croydon King, Mark Twain, Lower Twelve Miles, Mulligan's, Flanagan's, Morning Light, Moonstone and Alluvial Springs.

According to the original survey plan, access was from a track extending from Samwell Street and running adjacent to the southern boundary of the reserve.

The cemetery is an important record of the cultural development of the area, showing the ethnicity, occupations and social status of the inhabitants of early Croydon since settlement.

The cemetery has the potential to yield information in regards to the early history of the inhabitants of Croydon, their ethnic, social and religious backgrounds and standing within the community.

The cemetery is significant for its high spiritual and symbolic value to the community because of the burials that took place there and the evidence of hardship experienced by the first inhabitants of Croydon.