The first European to travel through the area was Captain James Cook who sailed through the Keppel group between 25 - 27 May 1770. He experienced some difficulty with the shallowness of the water. During this time he named Great Keppel Island and Keppel Bay (after Admiral August Keppel - first Lord of the Admiralty) and Cape Capricorn.
Cook did not land at Great Keppel. Nor did Matthew Flinders who must have sighted the island in 1804 when he circumnavigated Australia.
It wasn't until 1847 that the first European, a naturalist named McGillivray, set foot near Leeke's Creek. Of course Aborigines had been using the island for thousands of years prior to this. There are well preserved middens (mounds of shells) at the western end of Long Beach.
The first lease on the island was taken out by James Paige in 1908. It was transferred to N.C. O'Neil in 1918. After O'Neil's death in 1923 it was taken over by his wife Lizzie who subsequently married a local fisherman, Ralph Leeke. Both Leeke's Creek and Leeke's Beach are named after the couple whose house and shearing shed still stand on land behind and above the mangroves.The island's first resort, Silver Sands, was established on the island in the late 1950s. A new resort was opened in 1967, the airstrip was built in 1975 by TAA and it was during this time it was modernised and updated. Today it is operated by Accor Asia-Pacific and Contiki who have spent $3.5 million refurbishing the property.
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