These explorers of a new port and future city were deserving of a much higher and better recognition than was accorded them by either Government. The first sale of Bowen town lands was held in Brisbane on October 7th, 1861, when eighty-nine lots were sold, realising £2,083. Many of those early investors were Brisbane men, well known in business and the professions. The lots were mostly half-acres in area, and averaged about £25 to £50 per acre, the first Bishop of Brisbane (Tuffnell) figuring largely among the land buyers. In 1863 the demand for land called for several sales, as the town was progressing on account of the large overlanding of stock and the shipments of supplies for parties taking up country to the north and west. A land sale on April 20th, 1863, was held in Bowen, when seventy-nine lots were sold, realising £1,718; all the lots went above the upset price. On June 8th, 1863, another land sale took place in Bowen, when seventy-four lots were sold, realising £1,135; among these were some country lands in ten-acre lots, which realised the upset price, £3 7s. 6d. per acre. For town lots the upset price was £20 per acre; the competition for fancy lots was keen enough to run them up to as much as £100 per lot. Still another land sale had to be held to keep pace with the growing town, and the demands of speculators. This was held in Bowen on August 3rd, 1863, when seventy-three lots found purchasers, realising £2,643. This sale consisted mostly of country lands, put up in lots of from seventeen to fifty acres, at the upset price of £1 per acre; 1,518 acres were sold at this last land sale. These figures from official sources testify to the rapidity of the expansion of the new town, and to the high expectations that were formed as to its future rise and progress. Many familiar names occur in the annals of the official register, but most of the purchasers are now dead. Seaward, Marsh, and Genge, who had a large business as storekeepers, figure extensively as buyers, also Mr. J. G. Macdonald, James Hall Scott, Korah H. Willis, Thomas Cavanagh--a well-known celebrity of Bowen--and many other old identities are called to mind by looking through the list of the first land buyers in Bowen. Few now remain of those early speculators. The treasury of the young colony benefited by their ambition to hold land in the future capital of the north by the sum of £7,579.