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Reeftons History
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). |
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 Pounds and soon began to receive dividends of
hundreds of Pounds every few weeks. |
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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. |
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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
invest-
ment (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 Pounds, paying almost 700,000 Pounds 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. |
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