“Lauder Stock is Superior”(1)
Farming was a way of life in Lauder. The district was named by the Otago surveyor, John Turnbull Thomson, who in 1857, was the first European to explore Central Otago.
He named it after Lauder in Berwickshire, Scotland. The first major sheep station was named Lauder Station (Run 226) and extended from the top of the Dunstan Range to the Manuherekia River.
Wool was first carried on the returning wagons of the Public Works Department construction trains and was still a major item transported well into the 1960s. The number of sheep carried out of Central Otago increased dramatically as the rabbit population decreased.
FARMING IN LAUDER
Chaffcutting Bagging the Chaff, Lauder Creek Flat 1936,
00.232 Central Stories Museum & Art Gallery
Photo on right:
Curling at Mt Ida Dam,
Subject Photograph Collection Box 73, Number 25,
Toitū Otago Settlers Museum
Left: Stock truck unloading at Omakau while Ingrid & young Richard Emerson observes 23 Jan 1968, G.W.Emerson Collection
Lauder Station, near Blacks, Otago, NZ, 1877, Otago, by William Hart, Hart, Campbell & Co.
Purchased 1943. Te Papa (C.015750)
“The sale yards were always full of stock. Everything was driven down and sent off by train”.
Jim Clouston (Local Lauder farmer and identity)
The carriage of sheep to the sale yards was one of the biggest tasks of the railway in 1960. The bullocks went to the Stock Sales in Dunedin where they were primarily bought by local butchers for sale in their shops. Sheep were transported to the Burnside Freezing Work for processing and onward sales.
Oats were grown for grain and chaff and were carried by train with hundreds of bags sent off by wagonload for feed for racehorses and other stock.
