Kiwitahi

Kiwitahi was occupied by Māori before being converted into farmland by European settlers from the 1870s.[2]

William Chepmell established a 690-acre farm at Kiwitahi in 1871, which he continued operating through the depression of the 1880s and 1890s without having to sell or subdivide. He led a campaign for a road between Morrinsville and Thames and became a politician, serving on the Piako Council and Waitoa Road Board at various times between 1887 and 1914. The remoteness of Kiwitahi meant he rode an estimated 56,000 km to attend council and road board meetings.[3]

In 1985, Chepmell helped fund the construction of an Anglican church. In 1900, he pushed for a school to be built in Kiwitahi despite his own reservations about public education.[3] The school eventually opened thirteen years later.[4]

By 1902 Cyclopedia of New Zealand described Kiwitahi as having "fine grazing farms" and a railway station.[5]

New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd had a cheese factory from 1919, until it burnt down on 9 October 1937.[6]

In 1923 a poll was held to decide on funding road metalling and there were about 40 or 50 settlers.[7]

Chepmell died in 1930. His farm was brought by the Government after World War II, and subdivided for settling returned servicemen back to the land.[3]

A water quality, water flow and ecology monitoring station is located at on the Piako River at Kiwitahi. It is open with a one-metre fenced off buffer on either side of the stream and no riparian planting. Macrophytes choke the softy, silty riverbed during the summer, but are often removed during the winter floods.[8]

Kiwitahi School is a co-educational state primary school for Year 1 to 6 students,[9] with a roll of 39 as of March 2020.[10]

The school was established in 1913 and held Golden Jubilee celebrations in 1963.[4]