A banquet for a bridge The formal opening to traffic of the new steel bridge over the Mangapiko Stream, leading from Pirongia to Te Rore, was attended by a large number of settlers and their families.

After the speeches the ribbon was cut by Mrs Allan, Pirongia’s oldest resident, who was the first lady to cross over the old wooden bridge built by the Armed Constabulary 40 years previously. The bridge was supplied by the American Bridge Company, through their Auckland agent, and was the first steel bridge erected in the Waikato, and the second in the Auckland provincial district. It consisted of three spans and was 130ft long. The height above the riverbed of the river was 32ft. It was guaranteed to carry a live load of

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1001b per square foot. The bridge cost 760 pounds which was paid out of the county general fund. A public banquet took place after the ceremony, while sports and games were enjoyed by the children.

When an Ōhaupō resident missed one of his horses, searchers could not find it anywhere. Later in the day, a farmer living about two miles along the Te Awamutu road was relieved of a saddle, and it was thought the same person must have stolen both. A boarding house was also visited and the pockets in the clothes of one of the lodgers emptied of their contents, but nothing else was touched. There had been a lot of strangers about Ōhaupō in the way of swaggers but the culprit was Arthur Jones who was captured at Te Kuiti. When brought