That the first Alpha Hut on the Tararua southern crossing route was built exactly one hundred years ago in 1915. Mr W Workman constructed the 3 m x 4 m hut, with a dirt floor, from timber cut at the site, and from corrugated iron carried in by pack horse, all under contract to the Greytown track committee.
And that it was one year later in 1916 when there was the first recorded winter crossing of the Tararuas over Mt Alpha by F W Vosseler and others.
And then it was four years later in 1920 when Annie Fox passed by the hut on her way to be the first recorded woman to cross the Tararuas.
In these early years in was common to take three or four days for the crossing. Now, 100 years later in 2015, mountain runners pass by a luxury Alpha Hut (although with a leaky chimney) at the same site as that first hut but without stopping on their way to completing a southern crossing of the Tararuas in 4½ hours.