Tawau is located at the south-east coast of Sabah which faces the Celebes Sea to the east and the interior mountain ranges to the west. The geographic coordinates of Tawau are latitude 4.298 degree North and longitude 117.883 degree East.
The main town area can be divided into three sections, i.e. Sabindo, Fajar and Tawau Lama or Old Tawau. Federal House, where most government offices such as the Immigration Department and the National Registration Department are located is found in Sabindo area. Fajar is the commercial area, where major banks such as HSBC and Maybank, BSN, Public Bank, are located. The Tawau District Court is also situated here. Tawau Lama is the original part of Tawau, which contains Tawau's central market. Tawau Port is also located in Tawau Lama.
In early 1890s, Tawau's population was about 200 comprising mainly Bugis people (Read- Goodlet, K. J. : The Origin and Early Development of the Tawau Community) [1], Tidung people and Suluk people, the groups of local natives (see information of Muzium Negeri Sabah) from the Kesultanan Sulu Territories (including Kudat, Sandakan, Lahad Datu and Sebatik) around Borneo Island. These people were long-settled in the villages in Tawau Lama. Most of them were fishermen and hill rice farmers, who maintained trade with the Dutch. Besides that based on fact of history, there was an early settlement at Kalabakan, the oldest kampong in the Tawau distrist. The chief of kampong Kalabakan was menteri or minister of the Sultanete of Bolongan-Tarakan. The Tawau Town, indoubtedly, was first settled by Bugis due to the fact that Penghulu Puado had arrived in Tawau way earlier than English.
The name Tawau itself an enigma: ther earliest reference to site of present town was Tanjung. Some sources suggest that the Suluk traders called the place Tawao, a misnomer of Davao on Philippine Island of Mindanao. The most credible origin of the word Tawau is attributed to the Tidung, who called the place Tanah Tidung with the word Tanah corrupted to Tawau.[2] However, there is no firm evidence to support this claim.
The most detailed account of the founding of Tawau comes from O.K.K. Dullah Salim, grandson of Penghulu Puado or his real name La Tuampong Bin Andi Buku @ Haji Hasan, the First Native Official recognised by the British. Puado, a Bugis from Wajo Sengkang , was a trader whose business activities extended along the east Borneo coast from Banjarmasin to Sandakan. Puado asked the Government whether there was land available for growing crops and offered land at Tawau, an offer he accepted.[3] So it can be construed that Tawau was founded by Puado. A street in Tawau is named after this important personality that shape Tawau in the 1890s.
On 9 February 1893, the British vessel S.S. "Normanhurst" sailed into Tawau (or Tawao as it was then known) for the first time with a full cargo of dammar, gutta percha, Indian rubber, tortoise shell, and ivory to barter for rattan, raisins, Birds' nests and rubber. Kee Kim Swee, a Chinese (Hailamese) nationals who embraced Islam using the name Kee Abdullah was appointed by the British North Borneo (Chartered) Company as a custom examiner and revenue collector in 1894 in Tawau. He later became the Penghulu or Orang Kaya (OKK) in Tawau.
Steps were taken to establish the rudiment of local government by the British North Borneo Company (North Borneo Annual Volume 1966-1965 recorded that Tawau was founded in 1898). Land leases were alienated by the Administration. Since Tawau is situated close to the boundary with Indonesia, it is noteworthy to mention here that the Sebatik boundary is to latitude 4°10'N which was delimited in 1912 by a Boundary Commission comprising of officials from United Kingdom and Netherlands. A joint report was prepared together with a map and duly signed by their respective commissioners in Tawau on 17/2/1913. By a protocol between the UK and the Netherlands signed in London on 28/9/1915, the two governments confirmed the joint report and the map.
In 1930s, Tawau prospered rapidly due largely to its agricultural potential. The inhabitant population rose to 1800 in 1931. The Kuhara Rubber and Manila Hemp Estates and the Kubota Coconut Estates were the two largest plantations of the time. There were also coal mining activities in Silimpopon, 80 mile from Tawau, from 1905 to 1930, operated by the Cowie Harbour Coal Company. Most of the work force was largely Cantonese. The First World War (1914-1918) did not directly affect Tawau, which had, however, suffered its share of the world slump. Sandakan was the permanent seat of Government and centre of commerce; Tawau was a small but prosperous town.
By the end of 1930s, there were about 60 shophouses, all timber-built, lining the two main streets of Tawau, Dunlop Street (named after A.R. Dunlop who was a District Officer) and Man Cheong Street (now part of Dunlop Street). Man Cheong was a popular coffee shop. It still operates at Dunlop Street. Dunlop Street was so close to the shore that the shops on one side backed out over the high water mark. Most shops were owned by Chinese and sold the foodstuffs and equipment needed in households and on smallholdings. There were some coffee shops and lodging houses.
Tawau's centre was the padang or Town Field, an open area, with the sea on one side and whitewashed timber buildings on the other three - the District Office, police quarters, the government resthouse, none more than two storeys high. A tower (which still stands at the Town Field) was erected by the Japanese after World War I and hours were rung at intervals by the police guard. The scene was tranquil and beautiful. Traffic was scarce - a handful of private cars, lorries and vehicles belonging to the estates. From the field, Dunlop Street branched into Apas Road, which branched off to the Kuhara rubber estates and Sin On. Its people knew intuitively that they had to live and work together. Despite the many races, ethnic groups and religions, the town was very peaceful. There was no serious crime; doors and windows of dwelling houses were normally left unlocked.
There was neither electricity supply nor main drainage. The water supply to the town was by means of tubs set on trolleys which ran along the narrow gauge trolley line from Tawau River. The tubs were hauled by hand. A telephone line linked the District Office with the District Officer's house, the light house and Kuhara estate. The Government's wireless station communicated daily with Sandakan, whence messages were transmitted to Hong Kongand Singapore. There was no bank, but money could be remitted through the post office, and the Treasury accepted and repaid deposits on behalf of the State Bank.
There were 300 Japanese working on the estates and 100 on Si-Amil Island. They owned the biggest estates (Kuhara Estate), and a golf course. There was an estate hospital and representative office of a Japanese Bank set up for the benefit of the Japanese inhabitants. Their commercial fishing was mainly for tuna. Their company, Borneo Fishing Company, whose office and factory was situated at Si-Amil Island (east of Mabul and Sipadan Islands). Apparently, all workers there were Japanese. Japanese men crewed the fishing boats, while canning factory was worked mainly by Japanese women. The workers and suppliers arrived in Tawau in Japanese ships, and all were disembarked into launches and lighters and taken direct to Si-Amil.
The S.S. "Kinabalu" of the Sabah Steamship Company (a subsidiary of Chartered Company) linked Tawau with Sandakan, Lahad Datu, Semporna andTungku. The ship was wrecked off Semporna and later replaced by S.S. "Baynain" by the Bakau Company (also a subsidiary of the Chartered Company). The government cruiser "Petrel" was based in Tawau, but was often used on duty elsewhere. Apart from that, there very few sailing craft. There was no airfield in Tawau (or anywhere in Sabah). There was a small public hospital close to the shore but it had no medical officer. A medical doctor by the name of Ernst Sternfeld was sent from Sandakan to station in Tawau in 1939-1940, but lasted only a few months.
The Chinese community maintained schools. The Roman Catholic Church was later established in 1922 and provided the only English primary school.Mosques were unostentatious. The District Office was headed by a British expatriate District Officer and assisted by a chief clerk and court interpreter, Lim Ong Tun. OKK Abu Bakar (a local Malay leader) the second penghulu or OKK was another highly respected figure in the community. The Chinese "Kapitan" was Stephen Tan (who was later killed by Japanese invaders).
A letter from Tawau to Sandakan could take more than nine days to arrive and nineteen days was the average time for a letter to get to Singapore. Since it took many days for the locals to receive mails and newspapers, they tended to rely on radio to keep themselves informed of world news - for the wars in Europe, China etc. Even then, few people could afford a radio set.
In January 1942, North Borneo was invaded by Japanese naval and military forces. As the Japanese forces advanced around the coast of Borneo, from the oil fields near Kuching, then to Jesselton - while Tawau carried on normally. On 19 January 1942, the Sandakan wireless station went off the air. On 24 January 1942, the Japanese invaders were sighted off Batu Tinagat. The District Officer (Cole Adams) and his Assistant met the invaders at the wharf and were arrested immediately. Mr. Cole Adams, after forty-four months in the Japanese prison camps, first on Berhala Island near Sandakan, and then at Batu Lintang camp near Kuching, died in September 1945 on the very day of his release by the Australian 9th Division.
For 3 1/2 years Tawau and the rest of the country remained under the Japanese occupation until being finally liberated by units of North Australian Division, who landed in Labuan on 10 June 1945. B.B.C.A.U., the British Military Administration of North Borneo found the Colony in a state of devastation. Like all other major towns in the Colony, Tawau was destroyed or damaged by bombing and fire.
During the Japanese occupation, many of the inhabitants were massacred, among them a large number of government servants. The British Military Administration continued until 15 July 1946, when civil government was resumed. A lot of pre-war records were destroyed. The emphasis in the immediate post war period was concerned with rehabilitation and reconstruction. A reconstruction and development plan for the years 1945-1955 was adopted in 1948. There were many programmes in the field of social services. The Tawau Town Board was constituted in 1955 with control over its own finances and local authorities.
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