Grafton was founded in 1851 and has a population of 16,787. Grafton gained its importance as a transit station for trade between the metropolises of Brisbane and Sydney and lives mainly from agriculture and cattle breeding. The city also owes its most famous building to trade. The Grafton Bridge , which was completed in 1932, spanned the Clarence River on two floors, one for car traffic and one for the North Coast railway line, and was originally even a bascule bridge .
The city is also called Jacaranda City because of the city's streets lined with jacaranda trees and the Jacaranda Festival, which is named after it.