Barrett's Store

Guest article by Max Avery

Barrett’s Store Omokoroa, post-1954
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 06-063

The death of Mrs Freda Elsie Barrett on June 5, 2022  prompted a look back at her family’s link with one of the Tauranga districts best remembered groceries - Barrett’s Store at Whakamarama, once the only commercial enterprise on the highway between Bethlehem and Katikati. The store existed under the Barrett name from 1949 to 1966, and although it was first known as the Omokoroa Store, and carried the names of previous and subsequent owners, most older Tauranga residents remember it as Barrett’s Store. The enterprise had the distinction of two locations, and in its second form became ostensibly the first self-help checkout supermarket with trolleys in New Zealand. Grocery executives from several parts of New Zealand were said to have flown into local top dressing strips to see this American-style innovation in operation.

The original Omokoroa Store, cnr Old Highway/Te Puna Point Rd, western view
Private family collection

The store was first built on the corner of the old Tauranga-Katikati highway and Te Puna Point Road (later becoming Station Rd, Omokoroa Station Rd and finally Barrett Rd and, on the northern side of SH2, Plummer’s Point Rd.) The business was opposite the Tawhitinui Marae and was probably initiated by Ken and Nancy Gordon in 1926. The little motor transport that existed in those years turned off the highway onto Te Puna Point Road as the only way to reach Omokoroa Beach (also known as Crapp’s Point), passing in a cloud of dust in the summer, with mud clogged wheels in the winter. Otherwise only the clip-clop of horses' hooves and the grinding of waggon wheels on the metalled surface disturbed the bucolic peace of what was then known as the Omokoroa Store.

Installation of Plume benzine pumps at Barrett's Store, southern wall
Private family collection

Jack Borrows is said to have bought the store, which included a small living area for the grocer, about 1930. The building was rather oddly sited, close and corner-wise to the road, making it awkward to extend, which is what Mr Borrows was doing when he sold it to Jack and Edna Ewart late in 1939, for Mrs Ewart later described it as “a little and almost new junction store.” The population in the district was by then expanding, and with the store too small to meet the demands made upon it, more extensions began. Later in their tenure a van delivery service, each day to a different area in the Omokoroa-Whakamarama area, was introduced and Plume brand petrol pumps were installed.

Barrett's Store and accomodation, c1940s, northern aspect
Private family collection

When Matthew John (usually known as Jack) and Doris Barrett bought the store on 1 May 1949 it was more associated with Whakamarama than Omokoroa. They arrived from Buckland (between Pukekohe and Tuakau). With three sons, George, Graham and John, and daughter Joan. All helped make Barrett’s Store the service-centre and landmark it became during the next seventeen years. The need for fresh meat was seen early by Jack Barrett, a butcher by trade. Assisted by Graham (Freda Barrett’s husband) he built a butchery adjacent to the store, and Graham became store butcher. George ran the store, until he moved to Auckland in 1957, when John joined the business and took over. Joan distinguished herself by becoming office manager, mastering the cash register-cum-electronic scales at the checkout in the supermarket.

Two houses were built adjacent to the first store on the corner of Te Puna Point Road for George and Graham with help from David Borrell and his sons Billy and Cotty. Early in 1952 Jack (d. 1969) and Doris (d. 1963) moved to a house on the Omokoroa Beach front. At about the same time construction of a new section of State Highway Two from the Te Puna Stream Bridge to Pahoia began. Realising they would be bypassed by the new highway traffic, the Barretts purchased land on the corner of the Te Puna Point Road and the new highway and began the construction of the new supermarket, which incorporated a butchery, hardware, drapery and Mobilgas petrol pumps. Store and highway opened at about the same time,  c. 1953-54. The 470-metre section of the Te Puna Point Road which linked the two highways was renamed Barrett Rd. Enlarged and modernised, the original store building is today residential.

Interior of Barrett's store, Omokoroa, post-1954
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 06-064

For about a decade the name “Barrett” on the shopfront identified the new enterprise, with family continuing the same service to the district, selling a wide range of foodstuffs, household and farming supplies, and then delivering it throughout the area. In October 1966 they sold the retail business, and since then other names have proclaimed its operators. In the early 1990s the Barrett family sold the building, ending a commercial link of more than four decades with the Omokoroa-Whakamarama district.

Gamman Brothers and The Tauranga Sawmilling Company

Steam hauler in the bush, c. 1912
Tauranga City Library Collection 01-106

Saw milling in the early 20th Century was a very important industry in the hinterland of Tauranga, particularly in Oropi, Omanawa and Whakamarama. There were huge native forests of rimu, totara, matai, tawa, tanekaha and hinau, to name some of the more commonly used timber.

One of the most active families involved in setting up and operating 2 mills were the Gamman Brothers the second generation of a saw-milling family from the lower North Island. In 1908 Arthur and Frank obtained 24 acres on what is now known as Gamman Mill Road opposite the Oropi School.

Steam log hauler on ‘skids’ at the Mill, c. 1912
Tauranga City Library Collection 01-107

They had cutting rights to thousands of acres of bush in 3 blocks south of their mill. Most of the first workers and the plant were brought here from Dannevirke and the mill could cut 9000 super feet of timber in a day.

Gamman Brothers' Oropi Mill, c. 1915
Tauranga City Library Collection 06-050

Sawn timber was transported 6 miles down to the landing on the Waimapu River, and from there by launch and barge to the Town wharf.

Jack Rodgers' Horse team, c. 1912
Tauranga City Library Collection 01-108

In eight years the bush had been well cut over and many of the mill and bush hands had been drafted overseas to fight in the First World War.  Unfortunately a large number of them perished in Europe. The Tauranga Sawmilling Company went into liquidation in 1915, but the community that had grown up around it survived.

In 1910, another brother George and his sons set up a much larger mill at Omanawa, near the waterfall. This mill could process 30,000 super feet in an 8 hour day and continued until 1917, at its peak employing 100 or so men. The sawn timber was taken down to the landing at the Wairoa River, where it was planed, taken by punt to the harbour, loaded onto scows and transported to Auckland and other main centres.

Omanawa Mill
Tauranga City Library Collection 99-1367

In 1923 George and Sons moved to the Mamaku and set up again, as the topography of the land made transport of the logs a little easier. That operation was finally sold to Fletchers in the 1960s.

Other family members were involved later with the H.H. Sharplin mill at Whakamarama and a smaller private mill on Plummers Point Road.

In 1971 Arthur Gamman, 89, and by then resident at Hodgson House, was interviewed. In his words ‘the Oropi Mill was the first decent sized mill able to supply Tauranga’s needs for dressed timber and mouldings.’

Sources
Tauranga Kete, Gamman Brothers Tauranga, Debbie MaCauley - 2017
Oropi, 100 Years Following the Confiscation of the Land, Robert Craig Scott - 2018
Oropi School Centenary and District Reunion, Edited by Annie Rae - 1999
The Ngawaro Regional Historical Review, Jim Pendergrast - 2005
Omanawa Settlers 1910 - 1960, Compiled by Trish Heke and Margaret Bennett
Mamaku 100 Years, Edited by Shona Jennings - 1994