Walking map provided by Progressive Ōtāne
The Central Hawke's Bay town of Ōtāne was founded in 1874, during a subdivision of Henry Tiffen's 5140-hectare Homewood farming estate.
The township originally consisted of 176 sections ranging from 1/4 acre to 1 acre, with areas set aside form churches, a school, a post office, a courthouse, a parsonage and a future railway station. The streets Rochfort, Carruthers, Ross, Bell, Higgins, Knorp, Brogden and Henderson were named after the surveyors and railway contractors.
Ōtāne overtook and replaced a neighbouring township, Kaikora, formed over the 1850s and 1860s, and became the centre of the Pātangata County from 1885 to 1977.