TOURIST RESORT CHANGES HANDS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28992, 5 September 1959, Page 4

TOURIST RESORT CHANGES HANDS

£50,000 For Crystal Springs, Okauia “The Press" Special Service DUNEDIN, September 4. A Dunedin businessman, and a graduate of the University of Otago School of Mines, Mr C. J. Graham, has bought a Matamata tourist attraction, the Crystal Springs at Okauia, for £50,000. Mr Graham and his wife will take over the property from Mr and Mrs R. Gould on October 1. Mr Graham, who has been in business in Dunedin for about 10 years began his own drilling contracting firm, Cementation. Ltd., after graduating from the School of Mines. He was managing-director of the firm for about five years after it was purchased by another concern. The springs first became an attraction in 1915 and were in their natural state until purchased by Mr and Mrs Gould in 1944. Realising that the area had medicinal mineral water, glowworms, and a warm spring gushing about 35,000 gallons of mineral water an hour, they set out to make the Crystal Springs the only resort of its kind in the world. Today the springs have more than 200 camp sites on four grounds at various levels, tarsealed roads with adequate lighting, a camp store, cabins with allelectric amenities, a concert sound shell, a large entertainment hall and many other types of building.