Early history Prior to colonisation, the area surrounding and including present-day Waharoa was held by
Ngāti Hauā. In 1830, the Ngāti Hauā chief
Te Waharoa established the Matamata pā a few kilometres north of the current settlement. Reverend
Alfred Nesbit Brown first visited the area in 1833, and founded the nearby Matamata Mission Station in 1835. In 1865,
Josiah Firth began buying up land in the surrounding area from Te Waharoa's son,
Wiremu Tamihana. Firth gradually converted the land to freehold sections. This area began to be called the Matamata estate. Today, a portion of that area is the settlement of Waharoa.
Establishment Firth built the township of Waharoa in 1886 around what was then a new railway station, Waharoa Station. He established a church, a school, and a dairy factory and divided the land into ¼-acre sections. In 1921, a butter factory was built in the town. Another local industry was flax production: The town by this time also had a
flax mill. St Davids
Presbyterian Church was dedicated on Sunday 18 October 1925. Meeting halls were built in 1916
Railway station Waharoa had a
flag station opposite Pitt St on the Kinleith Branch from 8 March 1886, opened from Morrinsville to
Tīrau (then called Oxford) on Monday 8 March 1886 by the Thames Valley & Rotorua Railway Co.
New Zealand Railways Department took over the line on 1 April 1886. There was a by shelter shed, cattle yards and two cottages. Another
state house was added in 1955. There was a Post Office at the station, run by ganger, from 1893 to 1900. By 1896 a platform, cart approach, loading bank, sheep yards and a
passing loop for 33 wagons had been added. The loop had been extended to 40 by 1899 and 62 by 1964. By 1911 there was also a by shed. The station was rebuilt in 1923, had a verandah added in 1924 and closed to passengers on 12 November 1968 and to freight, other than private siding traffic, on 29 March 1981. There was a siding to the Waikato Co-op Dairy from 1925 until the
Anchor dairy factory closed in 1995 and was demolished in 2005. Icepak still has a
private siding. ==Marae==