Coalgate

Coalgate is a locality in the Selwyn District of the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. The 2001 New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings gave Coalgate's population as 276, and it is located roughly an hour west of Christchurch on State Highway 77. The town's name stems from it being the "gateway" to the lignite coal fields around Whitecliffs, the Rakaia Gorge, and Acheron River. Coal mining declined in the 20th century and has now ceased, but since the 1950s, commercial processing of bentonite has taken place in Coalgate. On 3 November 1875, the Whitecliffs Branch railway was opened, with a station in Coalgate. It was here that a private line diverged from the state-operated New Zealand Railways Department network....