Those who first settled in Eketahuna were mostly Swedish, who arrived in 1873 to clear what was known as the Forty Mile Bush. The settlers called their new home Mellemskov which means, 'Heart of the Forest' and maps of the 1870s give this name for the settlement. However, by the end of the seventies the name had reverted to the Maori one of Eketahuna which means, 'to run aground on a sandbank'; so named by the 'tangata whenua' to describe that location where their waka or canoes could travel no further up the Makakahi River, which bisects the township.This photograph showing the Eketahuna Hotel is reproduced in Petersen's hisory of Scandinavian settlement in the Forty Mile Bush.