Editing Strath Taieri (section)

===Twentieth century and beyond===
Gold mining in nearby areas such as [[Macraes Flat]] and Nenthorn buoyed up the development of the Strath Taieri and its townships, but that stalled in the twentieth century. In the 1880s, rabbits became a plague, and it was only by strenuous efforts this was contained by the 1940s. Runs were broken up for closer settlement in 1894 and later, but the valley remained thinly populated. In 1914, there was a move to have the Strath Taieri Riding transferred to the Maniototo County, which was unsuccessful. In the 1930s, attempts to get a water supply for Middlemarch were also unsuccessful. However, an electricity supply to Middlemarch was made operative on 28 July 1939.<ref>Thompson, 1949, p.141.</ref>

On 4 June 1943, the derailment of the Dunedin Cromwell Express on the outskirts of Hyde cost twenty-one lives. Because the accident was attributed to the negligence of the engine driver, the government became liable for more than £200,000 in compensation. The modern equivalent would be several million dollars. Postwar development was slow and while farm production increased, the population expanded only a little and latterly declined.

As the 20th century advanced, this large and apparently empty country maintained the character and atmosphere of a pioneering district. Middlemarch could seem to visitors like a set for 'High Noon'. The plateau country to the south, with its fantastic rock formations, tors, heightens the impression of antiquity and otherworldliness which inspired artistic responses. Until 1948, [[Antimony]] was mined at [[Hindon, New Zealand|Hindon]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.mindat.org/locentry-179105.html |title = Roméite Group from Mt Stoker Antimony Mine, Hindon, Dunedin City, Otago Region, New Zealand}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.mindat.org/loc-36072.html |title = Mt Stoker Antimony Mine, Hindon, Dunedin City, Otago Region, New Zealand}}</ref>

The celebrated New Zealand painter [[Colin McCahon]] as a schoolboy in 1936, had what he later described as a 'vision' looking westward from a point on the coastal hills over the Taieri Plain apparently to the plateau country south of the Strath Taieri proper. He later said his art had been an attempt to communicate this vision. He described it as seeing a landscape 'standing far from the sun of Egypt in the Otago cold.' He called it a 'landscape of splendour and order and peace', which he conceived as a pre-Biblical place.<ref>McCahon, 1966, pp.363-4.</ref> In 1945, his younger and also celebrated Otago contemporary, the poet [[James K. Baxter]], wrote 'Upon the upland road/Ride easy, stranger:/Surrender to the sky/Your heart of anger.' The lines certainly capture the effect on some people of the experience of crossing the plateau, approaching the Strath Taieri by road from the south.<ref>Baxter in Weir(ed),1981, p.34.</ref>

That landscape became greener in the 1960s and 1970s as native tussock was converted to European pasture, a process protested in the works of the artist [[Marilynn Webb]]. But the postwar prosperity of farming ended in the 1970s. In October 1977, the Taieri County was merged with its northern neighbour, Waikouaiti County, thus Strath Taieri became part of the new [[The Silverpeaks]] County surrounding Dunedin and its boroughs in an inland arc. Rural recession intensified and in 1989 [[The Silverpeaks]] County was merged into a new, much enlarged, City of Dunedin. In 1990, the Central Otago Railway was closed and the line from Clyde back to Middlemarch soon uplifted. Nevertheless, a tourist train service was being operated from Dunedin to Strath Taieri by way of the Taieri Gorge on the remaining part of the line. Since 1991 this has been run by the [[Taieri Gorge Railway]] Limited owned by the Dunedin City Council. In 1993, the course of the track further inland was opened as the [[Otago Central Rail Trail]] for hikers and cyclists, by the Department of Conservation. Both have proved successful in attracting visitors.

[[Image:SH87 south of Sutton.jpg|thumb|right|State Highway 87 entering the southern end of Strath Taieri]]
As a farming district, strategically located but isolated by geographical barriers, Strath Taieri's development turned on changes in farming and transport until the late 20th century. While the closure of the through railway saw the end of that means of moving heavy goods between the coast and the interior, the completion of the tar sealing of State Highway 87, in 1996, was the effective provision of another. With the growth of tourism, much of it motor-vehicle-based, this, with the rail trail and tourist rail services, has added a new element to the mix.

The rural, pioneering atmosphere of the district was perhaps responsible for the unexpected success of its bachelor dances, recently promoted ostensibly to find partners for its single men. That, and the emergence of New Zealand's iconic [[Southern man|Southern Man]] may have led to the event's attracting visitors from around the country and overseas. Apparently, few marriages have resulted, but Strath Taieri has become known to many more people.