Story: Tourist industry

The first (35-room) tourist hotel at Aoraki/Mt Cook was called the Hermitage – as were all subsequent hotels there. The first one was built underneath White Horse Hill by surveyor Frank Huddleston in 1884. Used as a base for climbing, it was bought by the government in 1895. This photo was probably taken in the early 1900s. In 1914 the government built a new 50-room Hermitage hotel on a more elevated site with better views of the mountains.