NZ’s own Eiffel Tower
Replicas of the Eiffel Tower may be a dime-a-dozen these days, but in 1889 Dunedin was first on the bandwagon. Ruby Macandrew reports.
Modelled on Gustav Eiffel’s famous tower opened just eight months prior, Dunedin’s Eiffel Tower proved a roaring success as part of the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition 1889-90.
The 40-metre-high tower, built by elevator manufacturers Austral Otis, was an opportunity to capitalise on the success of the French structure while also showing off the finest in modern machinery.
Having installed the lift in the original Eiffel Tower, the firm decided a downsized copy would be an ideal way to demonstrate its product in New Zealand.
Built from wood, rather than steel, and coming at a cost of £1200 (NZ$235,000 today), the 16-person capacity lift that ascended the tower was powered by steam, with show-goers paying a small fee to visit the three landings.
According to the Otago Daily Times, the cabin was ‘‘spacious and nicely decorated’’, with the operator able to ‘‘start, stop or raise the car at a moment’s notice’’ thanks to the company’s patented braking system, which would halt the lift in case of broken cables or a failed steam engine.
The lift was able to stop at any of the landings, one of which was a bar, with each of them bordered by a wooden fence ‘‘of sufficient height’’ to prevent accidents.
For most of those who took a ride up, it was almost certainly their first lift ride.
From the third landing, there was a staircase to the very top of the tower, from where patrons could look out over the five hectares of exhibition buildings on reclaimed Harbour Board land.
At night, the tower was illuminated with electric bulbs, and an impressive spotlight mounted on the upper deck.
The exhibition, guided by Dunedin mayor John Roberts, was an ambitious mix of a trade fair, an amusement park, art and architecture. It featured a grand domed entrance, six art galleries, a 3000-seat concert venue, and numerous halls, courtyards and gardens.
What was unexpected, however, was a secondary Eiffel Tower replica, commissioned by Auckland whisky retailers King, Walker and Company.
The 12-metre-tall structure, modelled after a souvenir version of the French original, was designed to display the company’s finest blends of scotch.
While the connection between whisky and such a quintessentially French structure remains unclear, it’s most likely the company simply wanted to capitalise on the popularity of the Paris tower, which had made such a splash.
The smaller and less impressive tower made little impression in the press.
Its competitor had far more success, despite being almost 300m shorter than the original and made from wood.
More than 3000 paying passengers rode the elevator up the tower on Christmas Day and Boxing Day of 1889 alone.
In total, the summer-long exhibition was attended by 625,000 people; a figure greater than the entire European population of New Zealand at the time.
The exhibition closed in April 1890, with all the exhibits dismantled and shipped back to their original homes.
However, by some quirk, the Otis tower remained on New Zealand shores after repeatedly failing to sell at auction, despite a reserve of just £30.
While the structure came sanslift, according to the Evening Star, it was eventually purchased for just over £32 by a Mr Gadfield on May 31.
It’s unclear what its eventual fate was.