On October 1864 John Hudson and James Price became Hokitikas first white residents when they set up their calico store on their Revell Street site. The gold rushes soon followed and Hudson and Price were ideally situated to cash in on the influx of diggers. Price later returned to England but Hudson remained to watch the emergence of the town he had founded

 

William Horton Revell, the government agent, magistrate and warden, supervised the laying of Hokitikas first streets including the one which bears his name.

 

In 1866 there was 102Hotels and 84 of these were crammed into the narrow mile of Revell Street. Accommodation at some of these hotels was nothing more than a blanket and a spot on the floor or on one of the dining tables. Later some of the hotels developed a more comfortable standard of lodging offered fine meals and provided dance halls, roulette wheels, billiards rooms, bowling alleys and other forms of entertainment. Many of the less reputable began to congregate at the northern end of the street and began to give it a bad reputation.

 

The Risk of fire sweeping through the calico canvas and wooden shanties during these early years was great and on 18th July 1869 the worst of these fire s. known as The great Fire of Revell Street engulfed numerous buildings between Weld Street and Stafford Street. Added to the threat of fire was the ever present danger of flooding and persistent seafront erosion which at times also endangered Revell Street Properties