Parkside Quarry owner Joe Mitchell, who died in Oamaru recently, leaves "an awesome legacy" after a lifetime of work in the North Otago landscape.
Mr Mitchell died on January 2, four days short of his 93rd birthday.
His daughter, Judy Mitchell-Oats, described her father as "a private man" who was fundamentally practical.
"He amazed me — nothing was a problem.
"He would think about things and say ‘yep, right, this is how we’re going to do it’."
Mr Mitchell was the fourth of six generations of family continuously planted in the North Otago landscape.
While he was bought up on the Parkside property bearing the quarry name, Mr Mitchell was the first generation of the family since taking up the land in 1874 to be directly involved.
Long before he assumed ownership of the quarry in 1974 from long-time operator GT Gillies, he had wondered at the potential value lying beneath the pasture land of Parkside.
"The lease came up in 1974 and Dad thought, right, I’ll take it on," Ms Mitchell-Oats said.
Somewhat ironically, Joe Mitchell’s great grandfather Henry Mitchell, who first bought the 650 acre (263ha) block of rolling tussock land on Airedale Rd had not realised the stone "gold" beneath the ground now so identified as Oamaru Stone, Ms Mitchell-Oats said.
The property took its name from the Parkside Hotel at Carisbrook.
Henry Mitchell, an immigrant from Cornwall, who arrived in Dunedin from Melbourne in the 1860s, was its proprietor for 10 years before arriving in North Otago.
The Oamaru Opera House was built of Parkside stone in the same year and Parkside became the principle source of Oamaru stone from the 1920son.
That legacy is seen in buildings such as the Waitaki Girls’ High and Waitaki Boys’ high school complexes, the Oamaru police station, Oamaru Public Library, and more recently Riverstone Castle.
Mr Mitchell’s tenure saw him innovate and expand over more than 40 years.
He bought the adjoining Taylors Lime in 1991, now known as Parkside Agricultural Lime, and expanded the business which now employs about 15 staff.
More modern mechanised cutting techniques arrived and the quarry, now managed by the sixth generation of the family, uses computerised digital cutting technology as the premier supplier of Oamaru stone nationally.
"We’re the only limestone block factory in New Zealand," Ms Mitchell-Oats said.
Typical of his generation, he was well schooled in farm machinery operation before he left school on his 15th birthday.
He farmed at Parkside then worked as an agricultural and building salvage contractor, among other things, across North Otago.
"He’s had a really interesting life," Ms Mitchell-Oats said.
"He was a hard-working man — did it his way. It was his way or the highway."
As a youth, the arrival of a new Caterpillar crawler tractor at Parkside sparked a lifelong love of the brand.
However, his life was very nearly cut short.
One day in 1949, while operating a post-hole digger, Mr Mitchell very nearly died when his coat was caught in the power take-off drive.
Well into his 80s, he could be found working on one of his beloved Caterpillars around the Parkside property.
"He’s had a wonderful life in doing what he wanted to do," Ms Mitchell-Oats said.
"He was a real trouper. He’s left an awesome legacy."
