It has a 4-Square shop, church, coffee stall and art gallery, filling station, hall, school and Xtreme Zero Waste recycle bins.

The village, and most of the land to the west, is on Hamilton Ash; a 350,000 year old, strongly weathered, mainly yellow-brown, clay-rich, airfall tephra, of rhyolitic and andesitic composition, which includes corroded quartz crystals, weathered hornblende and augite, halloysite nodules, and some manganese.

The vertical offsets of the Vanhoutte, Mangawhero and Mangakino Faults reach a maximum of over 250 m (820 ft) near Te Uku trig.

[7] Pollen analysis in the sediments of the Waitetuna arm of the harbour shows that the original vegetation was kahikatea on the flats, and a mixed podocarp-hardwood forest on the slopes, with totara, maire, mataī, rimu, rata, beech and tree ferns.

The Raglan County history said, "On 22 March 1851, eighteen chiefs of Ngati-Mahanga and Ngati-Hourua, headed by William Naylor, sold to Queen Victoria for the sum of £400 (modern equivalent about $50,000[11]), 19,680 acres (7,960 ha) of country bordering on the southern shores of the harbour.

The western boundary of the Whaingaroa Block, as it came to be known, began at Putoetoe (the point on which the town of Raglan now stands) and followed the Opotoru Stream inland.

Leaving that stream at its junction with the Hutewai, the line ran south beyond Te Mata to a point "marked by a hole dug by the side of the path to Aotea.

"[12] In 1852 John and George Moon, walked to Te Uku from New Plymouth, introducing the first sheep, and the first horse-drawn vehicle.

[13] Waitetuna Redoubt was built to the south of the Narrows, as part of Colonel Richard Waddy's end of December 1863 expedition to set up a supply line during the invasion of the Waikato.

From there the packhorse route (originally known as the Tikihouhou Track) made by the Army during the Waikato War, wound a tortuous way across the ranges, but it was too narrow, and too steep in parts, to carry vehicles.

[12] From the formation of Raglan Town (1868) and Karioi (1870) Highways Boards, road building was paid for by local rates.

[31] It got a detailed survey done for a 2 ft 6in gauge railway[32] and had a contractor ready to build a line[33] through the Waitetuna valley, past Te Uku School and Okete Falls and along the edge of the harbour to Raglan.

[36] The voting area included ratepayers who would have gained little from the railway, such as those in Ngāhinapōuri and south of Kawhia Harbour.

[37] Te Uku is served by the Raglan bus[38] and school buses,[39] but once also had services north and south.

From March 1922 a two and a half hour, Pakoka Landing to Frankton, via Te Mata, "Silver Trail", bus service started, with a motor launch connection to Kawhia on Fridays.

In 1946 Brosnan Motors started a daily run, leaving Kawhia at 5.45am, arriving at Auckland at 1pm, returning at 2 pm.

A Building Inspector said it had to be demolished, because rain water had caused extensive rot and it had begun to fall sideways and nobody should enter while there was any wind movement.

The longest lived started about 1868, when Wallis Brothers used a water-wheel to drive a mill at Okete Falls.

The mills completed and working full time belong to the following gentlemen Messrs Wilson, Moon, Sutton, Wallis, McDonald, Mitchell, and Captain Johnstone.

Five miles from Raglan, we come to the flax-mill of Messrs Wallis just above the beautiful Okete Falls, having abundance of water for the mill.

Little remains; a few parts of Okete mill lie near the falls and its pelton wheel stands outside Raglan museum.

Apart from dancing, the hall was also used for films, Women's Institute, a garden circle, bowls, badminton and meetings.

Over about 15 years it crushed several thousand tons for agricultural use and driveways, initially with a traction engine and later with electric power.

[13] In a 1904 Chronicle, Langley was advertising for cargo for the launch 'Nita', which ran from Raglan to Te Uku every Tuesday.

[58] Before Kauroa saleyards were first used on 21 January 1914,[59] sheep and cattle yards had existed at the start of the road to Waingaro.

[29] Local farmers formed Kauroa Saleyards Society in 1977, when the yards were threatened with closure,[13] and continue[60] to hold sales.

These are on the National Library website – There's also an Auckland Weekly News photo – Flight-Sergeant K. M. Moon, of Te Uku, missing on operations 1943 In 1871 Waitetuna residents agreed to build a school, but an 1872 flood washed away the timber for the scheme.

As early as 1882 a petition requested the school be moved away from the damp hollow, but nothing happened until the main road was diverted through the grounds in 1906.

In August 1908 the present school was established about 800 metres to the east, with one room on another 2 acres of donated land.

[79] The small settlement of Howdenville was built at the entrance to Okete Bay, on land sold by the Wallis family to Les Howden, a Hamilton jeweller.