THE OLD COMMERCIAL

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 4, 28 April 1939, Page 5

THE OLD COMMERCIAL

—o SOON TO FALL STORIES OF THE HOTEL'S LIVELY PAST BORN ON THE GOLDFIELDS A tumbled heap of bricks lies or tlie lawn in front of the Commercial Hotel annexe and holes gape in -ht: roof of tlie old building alongside where chimneys have bfeen demolished. Inside tlie building floors •:nc and dust and debris litters tlie flooi> Tu ; the house-breakers demolish l'u structure which has been one of the landmarks of Whakatane for perhnp:half a century, and which befor< that stood in a northern golfiieki boom town. In three weeks or so ii will he only a memory. The interesting history of the ok Commercial Hotel began on the Wai. rongomai goldfield in the Uppei Thames Valley. A Maori miner firs! found the gold in the Wairongoma. river and this led to the declarator of the area as a goldfield, claims being pegged "out after the usual rush Thousands of miners we re on the field from Cqromnndel, Thames ;1 m Vustralia and the canvas town oi Wairongomai quickly sprang inte ■ lining, the institutions catering I'm thirsty souls not being the last. open their doors. Wairongoma;'' buildings became more pretentious and the town began to rival T< Aroha —which also had its • start through a similar boom —as the £ c ' c poured in from the mines, some fl which were located 2500 feet U[ among the quartz crags. When Wairon gonial Boomed The Commercial was the leading hostelry of the three which flourish, ed when Wairongoma^was at its •jeafc with 3000 people and all the wilt life of a gold rush. So important was the centre that-the Piako Countv Council helped the mines to built seven miles of railway which i'"'through tunnels to the town'. Like so many other boom towm :\'ai'ongo'iiaj fell eventually. Tin ire was refractory, that is, it was 3 mixture of gold, silver, zirlead !i">(l cooper, and d'ffieult to refine with the methods then in, use. As ;l'e mines closed the town died ami iviU-iings w :e abandoned or demolished . The Commercial building escaped the fate of .some of its fellows for U W3s sold for re-election in Whalca. t::ne and transported here by scow, rt is said that it w*s touch and go whether the building would ever reach Wlia katane for the scow got into d'fficu'ties on the bar. However the bar eventually relented and cea-._ ed to bar the passage of the bar. Firsi Licensee. The first licensee was Mr E. L. Smith, father of Mr* L. W. Luxton. An interesting photograph which was probably taken about 1890 and is in .Mrs Lux ton's possession, shows ihe state of the hotel soon, after Mi' Smith obtained his license. There was evidently some delay in comple_ tion of the building, ar.d to comply with the law as it then stood and iota in the Hecn.se it was apparently necessary to build a front door and hang the publican's name plate above it. Thus,, the faded pho to gra p h shows the door with its portals invitingly ajar but leading to empty space. No photo, graph has been preserved of tile re. K'tions of tired and thirsl.v travellers when they were confronted with this phenomenon.'Possibly Mr Smith passed the affair off with the expia. nation that . temporary ■n. 'de it impossible to offer accommodation. Another' interesting point about the license for the hotel is that it was the last new one ever created in New Zealand, and that it was only issued after a protracted struggle in which Mr Smith, who opened 'he hotel as a free house, met bitter opI oositio'i from brewing interests. However he triumphed eventually and he ran the hotel for some years before disposing of his interest to Mi' Codkin. Other Licensees IMr Smith later came back to tin; hotel and when he finally retired from its control he was succeeded 1 by Mr Sourr, who in turn was followed by Mr Billy Regan. After Mr. Regan's death in the influenza epidemic—which incidentally caused seven deaths among staH and guests —Mr Alf Nation took thn license, 1o be followed by Mr T. Hendry and Mr C. E. Young who was the last licensee of the old hotel. There must be many interesting stories connected with the old hotel, but in the hurry of preparing this prosaie account it was not possible to delve very t|ceply. Mrs Luxton 1

spoke of the gatherings of Maor: who used to camp on the opposi i side of the Wairere stream wher the premises of Kent and Co and Mi Lean Motors now stand. This woui be during land court sittings, an Mrs Luxton told how the native would rol] a hogshead of beer out ur dcr the trees and sit round it a day. She remembered particular! the months of jollification that i'o lowed the first big payout for th Urewera purchase. Distinguished Patronage. The late "Darkie" Wilson ofto told the writer of a one-time pre minent customer of the hotel. Thi was no less a person than Te Ivooi himself, and 'i.)arkje'' said that th former terror of the settlers in h: latter years went iu fear of be'n poisoned, and always insisted on ha ing his own special bottle of run which, in the rather uncommr event of Te Kooti not consuming th contents in one sittifig, would b sealed and kept by the licensee fo his illustrious patron's next visit t town. "Darkie.-*' of course, pulled a fai leg at times but the anecdote has plausible ring. Tt "s less difficult t swallow than "Darkie's" other state ment that "Te Kooti wa 3 always nice chap, but he bad some terrii/l ruffians with him in the old day and ho was led nstrny bv them. Tlie old -fellow used to deliver thi with a moralising. slink" of his heat and rather gave one the impressio that ho wis talking- of some way ward young boy, and rot of the red handed raider of Poverty Bay an' Whakatane. Hauhau Victim Another interecting facet of th n l f] hotel's history is that Mr Falloon the native interpreter who was mar doted bv ITauhau fanatics on a tor in the AVh'd*-itnne river, wa originally buried somewhere in th grounds.' The precise site is doubt ful, but it was probably cUher u the Bnnk'of New Zealand section, o on the land poav covered by the ( Commercial Hotel. No doubt the e notes are very in complete, and old res'dents wit! their fuller knowledge may see e f tors in them, but they tell some thing of the chequered cxhtmee o! the old wooden structure which is s<; scon to fall. As it stands now be. side the handsome New Gommercia Hotel, over whose destinies Mr TT. E. Cuckscy presides, it is a per feci picture of tlie old facing tV new. tlie two buildings typifying Whaka. tane's pioneering past and con in the future.