Ohinemuri Gazette

Based in Paeroa, the first issue of the Ohinemuri Gazette appeared on Saturday, 19 December 1891. It appeared twice a week, on Saturday and Wednesday mornings and was hand-set.

Founder Edwin Edwards arrived in Paeroa in the early 1880s and started off his newspaper career by founding the Gazette with J H Moore and H C Wick, then in 1896, the Te Aroha Times and Waiorongomai Advocate, with J W Parry. He was an amateur geologist who at one time owned part of the Waihi Mine, was active in local affairs and was a writer of ballads, which often appeared in the Ohinemuri Gazette.

Ownership was taken over in 1900 by William Dennis Nicholas and Henry Howard Lyes (retired 1901). Nicholas changed the Gazette to an evening paper, appearing three times a week. Fire swept through the Wharf St office of the Gazette in 1908, but it continued to be published (printed by the owner of Waihi Times). New printing premises were opened in Princes St with an up-to-date press.

The Hauraki Tribune was incorporated into the Ohinemuri Gazette in 1896, with a title change in 1921 to the Hauraki Plains Gazette.

The Hauraki Plains Gazette was incorporated into the Thames Valley Gazette in 1977, with two other local newspapers, and then it became the Paeroa Gazette in 1988. This merged with the Thames Star in 1998 to become the Thames Valley Gazette, but the new publication lasted less than a year.