81 YEARS AGO

Lake County Mail, Issue 24, 5 November 1947, Page 4

81 YEARS AGO

From the Files of the Lake Wakatip Mail

October, 1866 Half a dozen Chinamen have gone up to Skippers on a tour of inspection. It is difficult to say what “John’s” intentions are, but it would be as well to be prepared for an invasion of the celestials. + The most striking event of the week is tlie result of the crushing of some 440 tons of quartz from the Otago (Southberg) Company’s claims, Skippers. The yield is 555 ounces, or something like an average of ounces <to the ton. + + + ■+■ The Queenstown Borough Council resolved: —“ That'Mr Haughton be requested to urge upon the Government to obtain the park as a land endowment for Queenstown. That Mr Haughton be requested to obtain three wards for Queenstown. That the Public Works Committee be requested to report upon the sinking of wells for the tire brigade.” + + + + We hear there is every prospect of a young ladies’ school being started shortly in Queenstown. The salubrity of the climate is so well ascertained that we are surprised that Queenstown has not been made an educational centre. + + + + Mr Johnston has commenced sluicing at the One-mile Creek upon an extensive scale, and he has, we hear, a good of the ground. This ground was first prospected under the auspices of the Queenstown Prospecting Association. A little higher up shore a party are obtaining remunerative returns by washing the beach and lower terraces of the lake. + + + + December, 1866: Some twenty-three applications for publicans’ licences will be heard at the next sitting of the Queenstown Licensing Bench from the Upper Shotover district, + 4- + + Captain Rees advised that the Queenstown Fire Brigade was out of debt, and that the Provincial secretary, writing on the subject of the annual grant to the brigade, had consented to place the sum of £.IOO on the estimates for the purpose. + + •+• + Extract from the* Borough Council report: “ That the by-law for verandahs shall specify a width of eight feet for Rees street, seven feet for Ballarat street, and six feet for Beach street, and the height at the lowest part shall not be less than seven feet.” “ That six months notice be given to remove all buildings from off the public streets.” + + + + The balance sheet for the quarter ended 30th November of the Wakatip District Hospital showed the receipts to be £645, and the expenditure £590, or at the rate of £2400 pen annum, or a cost per bed of £9 per week. Reports appear in the Mail about the official opening of the Gentle Annie and Nevis punts on the Queens-town-Cromwell road.