Delareyville

Delareyville was founded in 1913 and named after General Jacobus Herculaas de la Rey, one of the most effective Boer commanders of the Anglo-Boer War. Twenty kilometres away is Tweebosch, where on 7 March 1902 De la Rey inflicted a significant defeat on the British forces, capturing Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen in the process. The town exists in the shadow of that moment, or rather in its light. De la Rey's legacy runs through the region and through Afrikaner cultural memory well beyond North West Province.

The general's story has a strange ending. He survived the war, became a senator in the Union parliament, and was shot dead in 1914 at a police roadblock set up to catch a gang of criminals called the Foster Gang. His car failed to stop. The police opened fire. He died on the road, not in battle. That is the kind of story that Delareyville carries alongside the agricultural calendar and the silos.

The town is the seat of Tswaing Local Municipality, a category B municipality that includes Sannieshof and Ottosdal. The area is the second-largest producer of maize in South Africa and also produces peanuts and sorghum in significant quantities. Salt mining was historically important and remains part of the local economy. The railway line still runs through town as a Transnet freight line serving the grain industry. The surrounding farming community is substantial, with large commercial operations occupying the flat, fertile highveld to all sides.

It is not a town with much tourism infrastructure, but the De la Rey heritage and the Tweebosch battlefield make for a worthwhile stop if you are driving through on the R503 or approaching from Vryburg on the R378. The countryside between here and Lichtenburg is some of the most productive agricultural land in the country, and that story has its own interest.