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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]
Winton
Winton was formed into a municipality in 1876, and Mr Thomas Mc-William, as the first Mayor, presided at the inaugural meeting of the Council on the 1st of February in that year, with Mr F. G. S. Keen as Town Clerk. Winton has an area of only 162 acres. The borough has borrowed £800, under the Loans to Local Bodies Act, at 4 1/2 per cent., by the payment of which the debt will be extinguished in twenty-six years. The total population is 474; the number of ratepayers 118; the number of rateable properties 160; and there are one hundred dwellings in the borough. The unimproved value of rateable properties in the borough on the 31st of March, 1903, was £17,803, on which a rate of 2 1/2d in the pound was levied. The main thoroughfare and back streets are formed and gravelled, and there are fifty-eight chains of asphalted footpaths, and fifty chains of gravelled footpaths. There are one hundred and ninety-six chains of covered drains, eighty chains of open drains, and forty-five chains of outfall drains. Winton is in the centre of an extensive and wealthy agricultural district. Council for 1904–5 : Mr C. D. Moore, J. P. (Mayor), and Messrs P. A. Blyth, J. P. McWilliam, R. Smith, R. Wilson. J. M. Kennedy, W. D. Hirst, C. Williamson, and A. Liddell, councillors. The borough is lighted by about twenty kerosene lamps. The office of the council, at the corner of Wemyss and Meldrum Streets, is of wood and iron, and stands on a section of half an acre of land. Winton has a recreation ground of about eight acres, which has been cleared of bush, ploughed and planted. The Athenaeum building, in the main street, is the property of the borough, which grants its use to the committee in charge of the institution. The total outlay on the drainage of the borough, up to 1904, was £1,350, and on street work £3,350. Mr W. Russell is Town Clerk.