John Macarthur’s Pyrmont estate was subdivided during the 1840s, and the slope down to Elizabeth Macarthur Bay was used from 1869 onwards by Goodlet & Smith, the large timber yard centred across the Bay. The timber company flourished until 1910, but must have ceased to use this site by the 1870s: between 1874 and 1880, Low & Meeks operated the Australian Tin Smelting Company here.
Meanwhile CSR began to buy Pyrmont waterfront land in 1875, and built the sugar refinery that dominated the peninsula for the next hundred years. The company quickly acquired the land in the lee of the refinery: with access to the Bay and to the newly-made Harris Street, it was strategically important to the whole operation.