WESTPORT NOTES

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1923, Page 8

WESTPORT NOTES

(Own Correspondent.) WESTPORT, November 7. Westport is presenting a bold front in the building business at present and the main. thoroughfare is being greatly improved. A fine brick building is being erected on the old Clothing Factory site for O’Callaghan Bros., which will include up-to-date shops on the frontage. Alterations have been made to the premises so long known as Munro’s boarding house, and a fine spacious shop graces the front portion of the site, into which Mr J. Duncan is removing. Further along the main street, outside the brick area, Mr J. M. Robertson is erecting a large wood and iron building, which gives that portion of Palmerston Street an imposing appearance. Notwithstanding all these improvements the business portion of the town is very quiet. The butter district of Karamea is booming at present, and the output from the butter factory is highly satisfactory, while the outlook for the present season is particularly bright. Latterly the Karamea folk have been exporting large quantities of whitebait, which finds a* ready market in ■Nelson. The mining crisis does not affect the farming and dairying communities apparently, and there is no strike or lock-out among the milking herd. The Karamea district is one that visitors and tourists to the West Coast should make a point of visiting, as apart from its high-class pastoral

and agricultural lands, it possesses magnificent scenery equal to anything of the kind in the Dominion. The co-operative coal mines at Seddonville are working at top pressure, and there is plenty of demand for the supply* The Seddonville Collieries are gaining a steady and permanent market outside the district, while the coal is now much in use locally. Coal, coal everywhere—one hears of nothing but coal at present. The surveys of Cook’s lease have been completed, samples of co.al from the unworked fields at Te Kuha (Nine Mile Point) are causing a stir, while rich coal deposits have been discovered to the north of the Westport Coal Co.’s Dennston mines. This coal is about the best unearthed in this great coalmining district, and a company is being organised to work the seam aS early as possible.