Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast, about north of Cairns. Port Douglas was established in 1877 as an alternative to Cairns as a service port to the Hodgkinson goldfield that had been proclaimed on 15 June 1876, but with the construction of the Cairns-Kuranda railway line 1882-1891, Port Douglas gradually declined as a town and port. The Mossman district, although initially taken up as homestead selections supplying fodder, maize and tropical fruits to the goldfields, converted to sugar-growing in the 1890s and prospered in the early twentieth century.