Story: Gold and gold mining
This 1869 work, ‘Okarita, a digging township’, by William Cooper depicts the small West Coast port of Ōkarito. Many diggers arrived on the West Coast by boat. By December 1865, Ōkarito township had 33 stores serving the miners who were digging the black-sand beaches. ‘Everybody who does not dig sells grog, and everybody who digs drinks copiously’, reported one correspondent.
About this item
Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: A-104-049
Chromolithograph by William Marshall Cooper
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
