Jack Stark. New Zealand Retail (May 1997).
Jack Stark. New Zealand Retail (May 1997).
When Eltham became a borough in 1901, the town’s new council decided to rename the main street. Within the town boundary, Mountain Road became High Street.
History famously records Bridge Street as the first tar-sealed road in New Zealand. Forgotten today is that a long stretch of High Street was sealed at the same time.
Prominent in the development of the street’s CBD and northern end in the later 20th century was Eltham retailer Jack Stark.
John Joseph Stark was born in Auckland in 1917 but grew up in Taranaki. Returning from the war in 1945, he started a small grocery store on High Street. He did well and, in the 1960s, he bought three shops across the road, built a larger store, and moved his business there. His shop brought a lot of visitors into the town from around the region.
Stark was well-known and well-regarded in Eltham. One reason was his generosity. When regular customers visited his store, he frequently included extra fruit or vegetables for free with their orders. Sometimes he would leave a box of food on a doorstep, if the family living there were in need.
Stark could afford it because he was a good businessman. In the early 1950s he had purchased farmland at the northern end of Eltham, bordered by High Street and Clifford Road. Over the following years, he slowly sub-divided the land facing both streets. He kept one section for his own house.
Jack Stark was involved in a wide range of activities in the town and in 1998 he was awarded a Queens Service Medal. He sold his grocery store in 2001 and today it is a ‘Four Square’ store. More than two hundred people turned up to the farewell morning tea that was organised for him.
Stark Park, on High Street, was opened in 2005, on the site of the original 1945 store. Jack Stark died in 2006 and today there is a tribute to him in the ‘Four Square’ store on High Street.
This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.
Related items:
Taranaki DP1310 Sheet 1 (1899), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)
Taranaki DP6940 Sheet 1 (1950), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)
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