Putāruru is a small town in the South Waikato District and the Waikato region of New Zealand's North Island. It lies on the western side of the Mamaku Ranges and in the upper basin of the Waihou River. It is on the Oraka Stream 65 kilometres south-east of Hamilton. State Highway 1 and the Kinleith Branch railway run through the town. Name The town gets its name from a historic event which occurred nearby. Korekore a granddaughter of Raukawa, the founder of the Ngāti Raukawa iwi, was murdered by her husband Parahore. Her servant Ruru witnessed her murder and escaped into the forest where he hid and waited for Parahore and his men to give up their pursuit of him. The place where he exited the forest was named "Te Puta a Ruru" or "the exit of Ruru". This was eventually shorted to Putāruru. History and culture Pre-colonial history There were several Māori settlements in the Putāruru district in pre-colonial times. Ngāti Raukawa is the main tribe or iwi in the area and Ngāti Mahana is the hapū (subtribe) within Putāruru. During Te Rauparaha's migration to the Cook Strait area in the 1820s, many Ngāti Raukawa people moved from these settlements to Rangitikei and Manawatu localities, and others followed after the Siege of Ōrākau in 1864. Te Kooti and his followers were pursued through the district early in 1870 by a force under Lt-Col. Thomas McDonnell. European settlement The Patetere Block, containing the future town site of Putāruru, was acquired from the Māori in the 1860s. In the early 1880s large areas in the Putāruru district came into the possession of the Patetere Land Company, and from 1883 much of this land passed into the hands of the Thames Valley Land Company. Roadmaking commenced in the late 1880s, but the railway, begun by the Thames Valley and Rotorua Railway Co., was the most important factor in the progress of settlement in the area. The first settler in the district bought his section in 1892. In the 1880s Putāruru consisted of little more than a hotel and a blacksmith shop. Exotic afforestation was begun in the district some time after 1910 by a land and timber company with an outlet to the Hamilton-Rotorua railway near Pinedale. Commercial tree planting with Pinus radiata took place between 1924 and 1928 on the Pinedale Block. Milling began in 1940–41 and by 1951 the area