MORRINSVILLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 7

MORRINSVILLE.

MUNICIPAL JUBILEE.

PROGRESS IN 25 YEARS.

SOME EARLY HISTORY.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

MORRINSVILLE, this day,

Tho re-election unopposed of the Mayor and councillors of the borough of Morrinsvillo comes close on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of municipal government at Morrinsville.

Twenty-five years ago Morrinsville was a village of 500 people, which had just risen to the dignity of a town district, with a newly-elected town board, charged with the task of converting mud roads into paved streets. To-day Morrinsville is a prosperous borough of 1750 people, enjoying all the conveniences of bituminised streets, sewerage, water and electricity.

Thames Street in 1908 was a dirt road, passing through a straggling village possessing one general store, a hotel, a couple of blacksmiths and a butcher. The dirt road and the few wooden shops are long gone. The village has grown up into a fully-fledged borough, and this is typical of the vigorous growth of a dozen towns in the Auckland province. On Road To Goldfield. Morrinsville owes its name to Messrs. Thomas and Samuel Morrin, merchants of Auckland, who purchased a huge expanse o.f scrub-covered land where the town now stands, in 1877, seven years before the railway from Auckland reached the district. The opening of the Te Aroha goldfield in 1880 made Morrinsville a halfway house between the railhead at Hamilton and the goldfield. The railway was opened" as far as Morrinsville in 1884, and rapidly pushed on southwards towards Rotorua and eastwards to Te Aroha. All this

time Morrinsville was a tiny village in the midst of a great sheep and cattle run, and so it remained until 1904, when the Assets Realisation Board began cutting lip the Lockerbie Estate, formerly owned by the Morrins. Then Morrinsville began to go ahead.

As the dairying industry in South Auckland grew, so Morrinsville and a host of other towns grew. From 500 people in 1908 the population grew to 1000 in 1921, 1400 in 1923, and over 1750 this year. In like manner the output of dairy produce grew. Thirty years ago there was only beef cattle and slieep in the district, 25 years ago a small creamery was established, where milk supplied by a few pioneer dairymen was separated and the cream sent away by train to Hamilton. In 1923 the first dairy factory was built in the town, and now there are two of the largest butter factories in the Dominion, one _on each side of' the railway station. This 6eason about 5000 tons of butter —4 or 5 per cent of New Zealand's exports—will be railed from Morrinsville's two factories. The First Town Board. On February 20, 1908, the first Morrinsville Town Board met, with Mr. S. S. Allen, who was more recently Administrator of Samoa, in the chair. The new board took over a few hundred acres of the Piako County Council containing three dirt roads that rejoiced in the name of streets, and numerous other roads that had been planned on paper but never formed. Vehicles used to get bogged in the streets until many years after the board was formed, for all road metal had to be brought by rail from far-distant quarries.

Gone are the days of 1908, when Morrinsville was young and owed no man a penny. On May 6 of that year the clerk presented a balance-sheet showing that the total indebtedness of the young board was £15 16/, and later on the board decided to ask its bank manager for an overdraft of £50. Nowadays Morrinsville has a municipal loan indebtedness on the same generous scale as other progressive local bodies.

After 13 years of existence the Morrinsville Town Board gave place to the Morrinsville Borough Council, in April, 1921, the first Mayor being Mr. F. J. Marshall, who has lived in Morrinsville for nearly 50 years. Succeeding Mayors

have been Messrs. G. Howie, C. M. Gummer, S. S. Allen, W. McPhereon and the present Mayor, Mr. W. T. Osborne, who was elected in 1931, and returned unopposed this year. Picturesque Past. Picturesque pages can be-found in the history of Morrinsville. In the 'eighties scows sailed up the Piako Kiver and landed cargo at Morrinsville, and during the rainy season these vessels would sail across country, as the Hauraki Plains would be transformed into practically a lake. When Morrinsville was the railhead, it was a merry place on per day, many men having to be sent off to Auckland Hospital after several hundred railway construction workers had celebrated one pay day at the local hostelry. On sucli occasions the town's one storekeeper took the precaution to board his windows over beforehand.

In the da ye before the Great War there was a" young dentist, who practised his profession at Morrinsville for a year or two, and then went off in search of adventure. He became known to the world as Colonel B. C. Freyberg, V.C.

Morrinsville Junction railway station is one of the busiest in the North Island outside the cities, its stock traffic running into over 100,000 sheep and 50,000 cattle, while wagon loads of dairy produce leave the station every day.

So much for the progress in the past 25 years. What of the next 25 years?