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Reefton - History
Quartzopolis
Some alluvial gold had been won in the district, but Reefton
(or Reef Town as it was for a time occasionally known) blazed to life in
1870 after the discovery of rich goldbearing quartz reefs in the hills above
Black's Point. Despite enormous transport difficulties, in just over a year
crushing plants were operating on the ore. Leases for mining rights were
taken up in every direction, and as companies were formed to provide the
necessary capital, a riot of speculation broke out. Shares in untested
claims boomed, though not all were as fortunate as the investor who bought a
quarter-share in the Hopeful claim for £50 and soon began to receive
dividends of hundreds of pounds every few weeks.
The linking of Reefton to the rest of the country by telegraph in 1872
heightened the interest of investors, so that by the end of the decade the
country was in a fever over Reefton shares. Telegrams poured in by the
thousand to 'the most brisk and businesslike place in the Colony' to keep
Reefton's stock exchange - the only one on the Coast and one of few in the
country - seething with excitement day and night every day bar Sunday.
'Scrip mania' gripped the town, then nicknamed Quartzopolis, as discoveries
were made by such companies as the Imperial, the Golden Fleece, and the
Wealth of Nations. The established bonanzas of the Welcome and the
Keep-It-Dark struck fresh lodes at deeper levels; the town could talk of
gold and nothing else.
Euphoric speculators could not throng the pavements of Broadway for ever.
Share prices had parted company with reality and 1883 was the year of
reckoning. In that year, of the 66 operating companies all but three made
calls on shareholders. These exceeded dividends and many companies failed in
the ensuing crash.
If the bust convinced many New Zealanders that Reefton mining shares were a
ruinous investment (it even bred opposition in Hokitika to Reefton's
agitation for a rail link with Christchurch), nonetheless by the end of the
century the quartz lodes had yielded over £2 million, paying almost £700,000
in dividends. The continuing riches once the companies had been sorted out
meant there was still room for the enterprising fraudster to float a company
on the strength of an unproven claim. |
Electrical firsts
As the boomtown of the period, it fell to Reefton to
become the first in the country to be lit by electricity, perhaps even the
first in the Southern Hemisphere. The town's electric lights were shining
about six years after Thomas Edison's company had first begun to light the
streets of New York.
Walter Prince, a British engineer, had been brought to New Zealand by a
Dunedin firm and had supervised the construction of a hydro-electric plant
for a mining claim on the Shotover River (perhaps a world first) before he
brought his 1-kilowatt demonstration dynamo to Reefton in 1886. Here he
installed it in Dawson's Hotel to make it the first building in the
hemisphere to be permanently illuminated by electricity. Public interest
soon quickened into action; a public utility company was registered and
early in 1888 Reefton was being fed by hydro-electric power. Only the
foundations of the early powerhouse building and parts of the plant remain.
Cross the swingbridge to the east of the town and walk 200 m downriver. A
plaque in Buller Rd opposite the Buller District Council's service centre
building records the event. The original Dawson's Hotel was demolished in
1984, but its replacement retains the name (Broadway). |
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