Historic library comes to Dargaville Museum

History is hitting a sweet note at the Dargaville Museum, which has regained possession of the Aratapu Library and will use the 132-year-old building to house musical instruments and memorabilia.
The historic library was erected in 1874 in the town which grew up around the Aratapu sawmill, established in 1865 and the first of several big mills built alongside the Northern Wairoa River to cash in on the Kaipara's thriving kauri timber trade.
Aratapu, known as "Sawdust City", was much bigger than the settlement of Mangawhare, 10km to the north-east, which eventually became part of Dargaville, established in 1872.
But Aratapu virtually disappeared once all the kauri had been felled. A hall - also owned by the museum - and a pub now seem to be all that is left of the once-thriving town.
The museum acquired the library about 30 years ago and had it moved to the then museum site in Normanby St, Dargaville, now the Norfolk Court Resthome.
When the museum moved to its present site at Harding Park in 1985 the library, deemed surplus to requirements, was given to the IHC and shifted to a rural training unit for intellectually handicapped people near the Dargaville racecourse at Awakino Pt.
However, IHC sold that property last December and the new owner, Steve Griffiths, put the library up for tender.
That sparked calls from the community for the old building to be kept in the district and the museum put in a tender which included $20,000 from its reserves, donations such as $1500 from the Northern Wairoa Lions Club, and a bank loan.
Mr Griffiths said he received tenders from Whangarei, Auckland and Te Puke, but he had taken a ``sympathetic view'' of the museum's situation and the library was returned to its former owner for an undisclosed price.
Delighted museum secretary Pene McKenzie said yesterday the library was to be moved to Harding Park before Christmas. It would be attached to the western end of the museum by a walkway and would showcase the Northern Wairoa area's musical history.
The musical role for the library was suggested by Kevin Friedrich, who recently gave the museum his collection of about 100 piano accordions on permanent loan.
Ms McKenzie said the accordions would go into the library along with the Fruinball home-made organ in storage at the museum, instruments from the defunct Dargaville Municipal Band, Dalmatian stringed instruments, and many other instruments in the museum's collection.
Musical memorabilia to be put on display would include photographs of local pipe, brass, piano accordion and dance bands, including popular 1963 rockers The Boys - Kent Montgomery, John Barry, Kevin Jobbit and Chris Davidson.
Museum president Don Elliott said it had been planned to move the Aratapu Hall to Harding Park next summer, but then the library sale had come "out of the blue" and got priority.
"There was interest in the library from the south and east so we had to get serious and tender to keep it in the district," he said.
As a result, the hall was now "on the back burner" and would be reviewed once the library had been moved.