New Zealand - Greymouth - Street Scene 1930's -1940's - Note the Octagonal Phone Box - Real Photo Postcard Format - Photographer. L A Inkster Greymouth - #501350 Greymouth - Māori had lived in Greymouth for considerable time before European settlement, and called the area Māwhera (for 'wide spread river mouth', still an alternative name for the Grey River). The first European to visit the site of what is now Greymouth was Thomas Brunner in 1846. Brunner discovered coal in the Grey valley, and several places in the region (notably the town of Brunner and Lake Brunner) bear his name. Brunner himself named the Grey River after prominent 19th century New Zealand politician Sir George Grey. Together with gold, coal mining was a major impetus in the town's early European history. - From 1853 until the abolition of provinces in 1876, Greymouth was first part of Canterbury Province (the West Coast part of the Province was known as West Canterbury) and then part of an independent Westland Province. However Cobden, on the north (or right) bank of the Grey River was a part of Nelson Province from 1853 to 1876. The boundary between the Canterbury and Nelson provinces had been set as a straight line from the head of the Hurunui River to Lake Brunner at a time when the area was virtually uninhabited, but the West Coast Gold Rush straddled that boundary, with a population boom also straddling the boundary. In 1866, there had been a proposal for portions of Canterbury Province, including the urban area of Greymouth and the rural area south, to be annexed and solely administered by Nelson Province. The situation for the citizens of the area was partially alleviated with the creation of the County of Westland – which had all the administrative powers of a provincial council, but saw the legislative powers remain with Parliament in Wellington. Members of Parliament were not happy with having to spend their time on local legislation, and in 1873 the government elevated the county to full provincial status as Westland Province. - John Rochfort undertook the original survey of the site of the township in 1865. - Greymouth has a history of coal and gold mining. When the mining industry started to decline, forestry became a new staple industry. Fishing has long been important to the town, despite the fact that the entrance to the Grey River has two notoriously dangerous sandbars; an inner and outer bar. Greymouth was regularly flooded by the Grey River. Since the 1860s, the town had been under water almost two dozen times. When the town was flooded twice in 1988, the mayor of Greymouth, Barry Dallas, embarked on an ambitious project to build a flood protection wall. Since its completion, river flooding has not affected the town again. - In 1988 flooding occurred in May and September. The May event brought flooding to the West Coast, particularly the Greymouth area. A Civil Defence Emergency was declared for the Greymouth Borough on 20 May, and roads and properties suffered damage. Four hundred people had to be evacuated with 102 houses affected and 2 being condemned. - Greymouth also has an historic World War II gun emplacement at Cobden. The Grey District Council destroyed part of this site, without consultation, in 2007 to make way for a sewer line. - On 10 March 2005, a major tornado, which started as a waterspout, made landfall in Blaketown, a suburb of Greymouth. It quickly moved through the town passing just south of the main town centre. The tornado was one of the largest reported in recent history in the West Coast region and caused millions of dollars in damage and injured several people. - On 19 November 2010, there was an explosion at the Pike River Mine, trapping 29 miners. Attempts to rescue the trapped miners were repeatedly delayed due to high levels of methane gas until a second explosion on 24 November was believed to dash all hope of survival for the miners. (source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greymouth)