Water powered mills in the Bay of Plenty

Water-powered flour mills in nineteenth-century Tauranga were mainly small, local, and closely tied to Māori wheat production. They belonged to the period when Tauranga Māori supplied agricultural produce to Auckland and operated vessels, mills, crops and livestock for the regional and Auckland economy. Several Māori-owned and operated water-driven mills were working in the 1850s. By the 1870s local milling continued, including on the Wairoa River, but wheat )was also sent to Auckland for grinding. Flour milling remained limited by the district’s humid climate and unreliable wheat production. Blundell’s Waimapu mill was built in 1890 and a Katikati mill prospered briefly, but by the early twentieth century wheat growing and flour milling had largely disappeared from the Tauranga economy.

Right: Supplement to the Auckland Weekly News 4 May 1905 (p11). Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS19050504111