 An abortive gold rush at Coen in 1878-80 was re-kindled in 1886, and by 1889 Coen comprised a one-street township of tents and bark huts.The Coen Goldfield was proclaimed in 1892.A telegraph station had been erected at Coen in 1886, when the overland telegraph line from Laura, at the southern end of Cape York Peninsula, to Thursday Island at the northern end, was being constructed.