Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Nelson Historical Society Journal, Volume 3, Issue 1, October 1974

[section]

page 36

Timber mills that have operated in Rai Valley and adjacent valleys over the years from 1898 to 1974.

It is safe to say that the first timber cut in the Rai Valley was by means of pit sawing, producing telephone poles for the first telegraph line from Blenheim to Nelson built in 1866. There used to be an old pit and some pieces of totara, where this sawing was done, at a site across the river about a mile south of the Rai township. The sawyers were W. Anderson and Walter Seymour. The totara slabs, which were off-cuts from the telegraph poles, were used by my father to build a hayshed over seventy years ago when he owned the property.

I have seen 58 mills erected in the Rai and Upper Pelorus Valley and am the only one lucky enough to be able to say I have seen them all. There have been six in the Ronga Valley, six in the Tunakino Valley, 14 in the Opouri Valley, nine on the east side of the Rai River, and eight on the west side. In the Upper Pelorus and Tinline Valleys 15 mills have operated over the years. Today there are only two operating in the area, one in the Opouri Valley and one in the Rai Valley, within two chains of the site where the first mill started.