McDowell's of the Howard Goldfield

About 1914 there was a small gold rush to the isolated Howard River Valley between lakes Rotoroa and Rotoiti. Although the first rush to occur, it wasn't a new find, with gold having first been discovered in the area about 1860. With the coming of the First World War many miners were sent overseas to fight, and activity soon petered out leaving just a few miners working in Louis Creek.

At this time the fortunes of existing gold fields such as the West Coast and Otago which had produced spectacular riches were beginning to wane, with much of the easily won gold having been found. Also the very nature of mining had begun to change, a transition from individual miners each working alone, to large companies employing hundreds of workers. By comparison the Howard had the distinction of being one of the very last goldfields where individual miners and small collectives were still prolific.

The next rush to the Howard occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930's; a time when worsening economic conditions and wide scale unemployment forced many men out into the goldfields to try and earn an income. Miners, (or ‘diggers’ as they were known) and their families began arriving, and soon afterwards an approach was made to the Mines Department who decided the Howard was suitable to engage the unemployed in gold mining operations. A subsidy began in 1932 which would ensure that if unsuccessful, participants could at least make a subsistence wage. One of the conditions of the subsidy was to repay 10% of gold won to the Unemployment Board who administered the scheme on behalf of the Government; however this was unpopular and so poorly enforced that the cunning miners soon found ways to evade it.

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