History11km southeast of Lawrence is the little village of Waitahuna. The settlement was originally surveyed as Havelock, however this name did not survive. Waitahuna bloosmed during the goldrush era of the 1860s and 1870s, however the community rapidly declined when dredging took off. By 1870 the township had a population of 150 Chinese citizens. A school began in 1875, and the post office opened the following year in 1876. A Good Templars hall was built in 1880, a Presbyterian church in 1874, and a Catholic church in 1923. The town was briefly a railway terminus, when a branch line from a junction at Clarksville with the Main South Line was opened to the town on 22 January 1877. A little over two months later, the line was opened beyond Waitahuna to Lawrence and it went on to become the Roxburgh Branch. Passenger trains served Waitahuna until 4 September 1936; from that date until the line's closure on 1 June 1968, the line was freight-only. Despite the line's closure, Waitahuna's goods shed, station building, and even men's toilets still stand at the site of the former railway yard. There also remains the unusual Waitahuna River Suspension Bridge, built around 1905-6 which is worth seeing, and the Waitahuna Gully Miner's Monument. This monument commemorates the discovery of gold here in June 1861 and also the Pioneer miners.
