Otago Gold Rush

Gabriel Read found gold in the gully that bears his name in May 1861, and by one official count the Tuapeka field held about 11,500 people by July, more than twice the population of Dunedin. The rush made Otago the wealthiest province in New Zealand and turned Dunedin into the country's largest town for a time. When European miners left for the West Coast fields in 1865, Otago's leaders invited Chinese miners from Victoria to rework Otago's claims, a migration the region still remembers. The town of Lawrence and the historic reserve at Gabriel's Gully mark where it began.