[3] The small town of Kakamas was built on the sheer hard work and determination of a couple of impoverished stock farmers at the end of the 19th century.

In 1897, the Dutch Reformed Church started a "colony" on the farms Soetap and Kakamas on the banks of the Orange River for white people who had lost everything as a result of the drought[4].

The men worked extremely hard even taking the yoke themselves, rather than wasting precious time in launching a time-consuming search for oxen and donkeys grazing somewhere in the veld.

The Commission that ran the "colony" planned ahead and in 1912 building operations on a hydro-electric power station and turbine in the northern canal were started.

The economy of this town is based on farming, and thanks to irrigation from the Orange River farmers from the Kakamas area are now prime exporters of table grapes to Europe and England.