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The oversized Sergeant Dan advertising figure fixed to Gore’s historic Creamoata Mill, a surviving landmark from one of New Zealand’s best-known cereal brands.
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Sgt Dan – Gore
This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Site-level location · 46.1014° S, 168.9456° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Sgt Dan is an advertising character who outlived the product, the company and the factory, and is still on the wall.
Gore sits in country that grew a large share of New Zealand's grain for the better part of 150 years, and oats were central to it. Fleming's opened its Creamoata Mill in Gore in 1893 – at the time the biggest mill of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. The family built on Gorton Street partly for the proximity to the South Island main trunk line, and ran the building's own spur into the railway, a stretch of which still exists.
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PRACTICAL
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WHAT TO EXPECT
Gore District Council, Gore tourism, Heritage New Zealand and the mill’s current operator all confirm that the large Sgt Dan figure remains on the former Creamoata building. The character dates from the Creamoata advertising campaign launched in 1915 and became a nationally recognised pop-culture figure.
ACCESS
Exterior industrial-building landmark at the current Sgt Dan Stockfoods mill, 4 Gorton Street. It can be viewed from lawful public areas; do not imply that the operating industrial property is a public attraction or invite entry without permission.
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