There have been several archaeological finds on the coast south of Tokanui and a couple further up the valley, including an
adze (
Māori: toki) at Quarry Hills. The area was part of the 1853
Murihiku purchases ( bought by the government for £2,600), the injustices of which have since been partly redressed by the 1998
Ngāi Tahu Settlement. Peter Dalrymple (1813-1901) started a
sheep station in 1857, which he sold in 1878. Around 1880 work started on draining what had been a wetland area and, in 1883, a road was built linking
Fortrose and
Waikawa, thus facilitating government sales of land to
settlers. However, the road was still very muddy in 1885. A post office opened in 1887 and a
dairy factory on 29 November 1897, which closed in 1945. A cemetery, opened in about 1891, where 22 graves are listed. There were
flaxmills in the area from at least 1899 to 1930. A police station opened in 1918. In 1926 the first petrol pump was put in by Tokanui Motor Company. Tokanui Medical Centre was formerly Golden Memorial Maternity Hospital, named after Thomas Golden, a Southland Hospital Board member, and opened about 1956.
Sawmills Source: There were several sawmills, milling trees such as
rimu. Bauchop's mill burnt down in 1912 and narrowly escaped another fire in 1917. There were 3 timber mills in 1921. Some of the sawmills were linked to their
bush by
tramways, between at least 1902 and 1925. One extended from the railway station towards Waikawa. A
woodchip mill started in the 1980s, using
kāmahi and
beech and, from 1985, replaced the native trees as its feedstock, with locally grown
eucalyptus.
Halls Tokanui was allocated £41 13s 4d towards the building of a x
Coronation Hall, which opened on 13 October 1911. It was burnt down in 1949. The first replacement
Memorial Hall was built in 1954, however, it was also burnt down by an arsonist in 1965. The replacement was rather larger x , built on a different site. and opened in 1967. There is also a
Lions Club, which was started in 1979.
Railway station Tokanui was a
flag station at the eastern terminus of the
Tokanui Branch railway line, operating from
Invercargill, away.'''' The line was extended and with
gradients as steep as 1 in 50, from
Waimahaka to Tokanui, the official opening being on Wednesday 20 September 1911, initially with trains on Saturdays and Tuesdays. From time to time trains ran daily, but mainly ran only a few days a week. Trains were speeded up in 1924, cutting the journey time to Invercargill to 2h 25m. A request for a stationmaster was rejected in 1920, so that Waimahaka remained the only station on the line with a stationmaster and all records of traffic on the line show only that station. A 1910 contract for the station buildings at
Te Peka and Tokonui was won by P A Lyders of Dunedin for £1827. They were finished by August 1911, when Tokanui had a station building, platform, x goods shed, loading bank, cattle yards, coal shed, 5 sidings, an engine shed and, in 1912, also a
turntable. The engine shed closed on 1 January 1960. There was a Post Office at the station from 6 February 1953 to 31 March 1966. it wasn't until 1932 that it lit the stockyards, 1936 when it was noted a
railway house had electricity and 1946 for station lighting. There were 3 railway houses in 1912 and another was added in 1919. On Sunday, 31 July 1966 the station closed to all traffic.'' except part of the platform. == Geology ==