Daily Photo – Inn Street, Owaka

Question: What happened to the Owaka gunpowder factory? 

Answer: it blew up! 

Back in the mid to late 1800s, the Owaka region had become a popular spot. This was mainly  thanks to the whaling and sealing industries, which the Europeans had discovered provided rather useful oil and fur. Once that industry died away, attention quickly turned to the surrounding native forests and a sawmilling industry was established to supply timber to the growing settlement of Dunedin. By the 1870s and 1880s, the farming trade was on the rise and more bush was cleared, meaning the town of Owaka became the hub for supplies, trade, and services in the district. As the population grew, services were added like a post office in 1867, a telegraph office arrived in 1879, a bank in 1880 and a gunpowder factory by 1880 – I kid you not! 

These days, a gunpowder factory in the small settlement of Owaka seems quite absurd, but when put into context it is actually rather clever. You see, the factory supplied gunpowder to the timber trade, who used it to split the wood, which was then shipped off to other centres. 

The factory came to life around 1880 when Englishman John Mackley and a Swedish-born chemist C.G.V. Leijon founded Mackley and Leijon’s Owake Mills Tower Proof Gunpowder – and doesn’t that name have a ring to it! The pair were quickly successful in the new enterprise, gaining a medal at the New Zealand International Exhibition in Christchurch in 1882. With the product proving popular throughout the region, they located their factory near the Owaka River (about 1.5km from the current town centre), so a log dam could provide water to drive the factory’s grinder. This then processed Hinahina Wood which was used to create charcoal, one of the main ingredients of gunpowder when mixed with sulfur and saltpetre. The powder was then sent to the milling industry and exported around the region for other uses. That was, until the factory exploded – on three separate occasions none the less, until its closure in 1884. The final blast was so impressive that it completely destroyed the factory and was heard almost 40 kilometers away in the neighboring town of Kaitangata. The factory wasn’t rebuilt, thus ending the Mackley and Leijon’s Owake Mills Tower Proof Gunpowder business.