A pit at the end of the main street
William Nicholl pegged a five-acre claim in 1882 and called it Martha after a relative, and the claims around it merged into the Martha Company. The first stamp battery was crushing ore by 1882, and once the cyanide process made low-grade rock pay, Martha became one of the most important gold and silver mines in the world. Waihi grew with it and by 1908 was the fastest-growing town in the Auckland province, three times the size of Hamilton. In 1935, with the gold price fixed at 35 US dollars an ounce, New Zealand’s output peaked and two-thirds of it came from the Waihi company. The fixed price is also what eventually killed it in the 1950s. Mining came back in the 1980s as an open pit, and the pit now sits at the edge of the town with a viewing platform looking into it.
Waikato, New Zealand
See it on the map
Other places on the map within a couple of hours of here.
