24 Beach Street, Queenstown, Queenstown-Lakes
In the Beginning...
By around 1100A.D. Maori had explored the coasts of the South Island. During the early centuries of their occupation they started to move inland. There they discovered greenstone which became an important part of their culture. Greenstone was found in the Dart River Valley, and the Wakatipu region was also a base for seasonal birding and eeling. There were settlements near the junction of the Shotover and Kawarau rivers, near the Kawarau Falls and at Tahuna (Queenstown). The Early Europeans Nathaniel Chalmers Maps as far back as 1843 show Europeans knew of Lake Wakatipu from Maori. It wasn’t until 1853 that the explorer Nathaniel Chalmers, guided by a celebrated Maori chief, Te Reko, saw the great expanse of water from a distant mountain range. John Chubbin, John Morrison and Malcom Macfarlane These first three Europeans to stand on the shores of the lake also followed the directions of Te Reko.
They made their mark by inadvertently setting fire to acres of fern, scrub and grasses when one dropped a match after lighting his pipe. Donald Hay In 1859, Hay followed others and spent a fortnight exploring the lake on a raft. He beached his raft at what is now called Frankton and set off across country on foot, finding the lake that was named after him (though wrongly spelled) - Lake Hayes. William Gilbert Rees Others visited Lake Wakatipu, but the first man to settle in the area was William Rees. With Nicholas von Tunzelmann he explored the area in 1860. Rees selected land on the northeast side of the lake. Six months later his men drove his sheep there and erected buildings at a site known as The Camp, later to be called Queenstown. Rees had bought a whaleboat in Invercargill. This was hauled on sledges by bullocks to Kingston where it was launched. Rees’s shepherds were sent with a flock of sheep to the head of the lake where they named the river the Rees. Gold Gabriel Read discovered gold at Tuapeka in 1861, near today’s little town of Lawrence. Before long, prospectors were working their way up the rivers and streams of Central Otago. Gold was discovered in the Queenstown area by one of Rees’s shearers, Thomas Arthur. A stone cairn near the Shotover Bridge commemorates his remarkable discovery. One November afternoon in 1862, he washed 4 ounces of gold from the Shotover River beach in just 3 hours. In the next two months he and his mates found gold worth £4,000. His discovery triggered one of the greatest gold rushes in New Zealand. Gold was also found in the Arrow River and in Moonlight Creek, a tributary to the Shotover. Miners came up the lake in Rees’s boat, over the rugged Crown Range and up the Kawarau Gorge.
They made incredible journeys over bluffs and mountains to penetrate the upper Shotover to try to make their fortunes. Rees sold them stores and meat and acted as custodian of the gold. He pulled down his woolshed and built the Queen’s Arms Hotel on the lakefront. The hotel was later renamed Eichardt’s after the Prussian officer who rebuilt it in brick and stone. By 1863, Queenstown was transformed into a mining town with 26 hotels - or grog shanties - and almost every kind of business was operating. There was also a hospital at Frankton. Queenstown was declared a municipality in 1866.
Images with thanks to Te Papa: Queenstown, 1870-1880s, Queenstown, by Burton Brothers studio. Te Papa (O.026445).jpg Queenstown, 1870-1880s, Queenstown, by Muir & Moodie studio. Te Papa (O.026446).jpg
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