THE PROGRESS OF RAETIHI

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2699, 19 February 1916, Page 9

THE PROGRESS OF RAETIHI

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THE story of Raetihi and tho Waimarino District is of exceptional interest It is _ a tale, of heroic pioneering, and of men who .won out in the face of heavy odds. Less : than thirty years ago, the great stretch'of Waimarino country was a land untrodden and tinknown ; to-day it is producing considerable wealth; to-morrow its output may Be greater than many of the hostsettled districts of the present. The early settlers who tore these prolific lands from the giip of the giant forests Buffered hardships and privations that thousands of men of ; to-ilay would shrink from facing, and would never attempt to. endure. There were no roads—only forest!, forest! forest! Food had to be carried, 17 miles on men's backs. Later it was packed in on horses,-and men'scrambled for it when it arrived. Never 'was the fight for bread more keenly, fought, and never did man better deserve his victory over adversity. For twenty years' these settlers awaited the coming of the Main Trunk line—a promised boon which induced many of them to take up the holdings they, settled on and struggled with. At last the line came through, roads were made, more country opened up, and 1916 finds the "Waimarino a flourishing district, bristling with splendid chances, and in the middle of it tbe thriving, rising town of Raetihi. ■