Customs officials elsewhere and such publications as the Mercantile Navy List frequently called the port "Wide Bay" well into the 1860s.

became the superintendent for John Eales, a prominent land owner in the Hunter Valley, and brought a flock of sheep across the Darling Downs, blazing a track over the Brisbane Range to establish a head station near Tiaro.

[4] George Furber became the first white settler on the south side of the river in 1847, where he set up a trading station and Inn.

When Edgar Aldridge, Henry and Richard Palmer, Enoch Rudder and their party arrived in 1848, they crossed the river and settled on the north bank, which was later to be named the Wide Bay Village, now the Old Township Site.

To honour her memory Governor Fitz Roy renamed the stream, Mary, and the post office at the settlement was then called, Maryborough.

[5] When the river became unnavigable to larger vessels a new township was surveyed by Surveyor Labatt in 1852 and in 1854 the small iron-hulled screw steamship William Miskin, built in 1852, 124 tons discharged cargo at the Old Township and was possibly the first steamship to visit the Mary River.

[15] However, Urangan had its limitations as only one vessel could berth at a time and by the 1950s the facilities needed to be expanded to cater for even larger ships.