Castle and Cooke | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

January 30, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Molokai Ranch

One-and-a-half-million years ago, two large volcanoes emerged and created the island of Molokai, Kamakou in the east and Maunaloa in the west. Somewhat later, a third and much smaller caldera, Kauhako, rose to form the Makanalua peninsula on the north side.

Over eons, the north side of the island eroded and fell into the sea, leaving behind the vertical sea cliffs which today make up most of Molokai’s impressive North Shore.

It’s the fifth largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago; 260 square miles in area, 38 miles long and ten miles wide at its widest point.

Situated in the center of the 8 major Hawaiian Islands, Molokai is 25-miles southeast of Oʻahu, and a 25-minute flight from Maui. From the eastern end of the island, it’s only 8-miles across the Pailolo Channel to Maui.

The oldest known settlement on Molokai occurred in Hālawa Valley, at the eastern end of the island. This side of the island was heavily populated in pre-contact Hawaii, a result of ample water from the mountains, fertile and level land for farming, and a rich and abundant ocean.

In November, 1778, Captain James Cook sighted Molokai on his first visit to the Sandwich Islands (as he named these islands,) but it wasn’t until 1786 when Captain George Dixon anchored off Molokai’s coast, that Europeans first visited this island.

Lot Kapuāiwa, who later became King Kamehameha V, gained the title to land on the western side of the island. He had a summer house and began raising cattle. Title later passed to Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani and then to Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop and then (with additional land purchased by Charles R. Bishop) became part of the Bishop Estate.

In 1897, a group of Honolulu businessmen (including Judge Alfred S Hartwell, Alfred W Carter, and AD McClellan) purchased 70,000 acres from the trustees of the Bishop Estate and leased another 30,000 acres from the Hawaiian government. Molokai Ranch was formed. At that time, American Sugar Company began sugar cane production on the lands.

About 10 years later, the land was bought out by Charles M Cooke and under his son, George P Cooke, they raised cattle, planted sweet potato and wheat crops and produced honey. It became the second largest cattle ranch in Hawaiʻi and a major producer of beef.

In the early days, the focus was on raising beef cattle for market, plus horses and mules for use and for sale elsewhere. Over time, other ventures were tried, with varying degrees of success. Some of these included raising sheep for market, honey production, a small dairy, and various grains and row crops.

Between 1923 and 1985, several thousand acres were leased to Libby and Del Monte for pineapple cultivation. During those years, pineapple was an economic mainstay for Molokai.

The Cooke family owned Molokai Ranch for almost 80 years until the late-1980s. It was operated as a family corporation separate, from Castle and Cooke.

More recently, activities related to the visitor industry were tried. However, in May 2008, the Ranch reduced its operations on the island. Today, Molokai Ranch encompasses about 53,000-acres which is roughly one-third of the island.

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October 24, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kainalu

This spot was formerly called Kalehuawehe. The surf break ‘Castles’ is named after the Castle family’s four-story beachfront home.

In 1837, Samuel Northrup Castle arrived in Honolulu as a missionary. He left Hawaiʻi for a short time then returned as a businessman for the mission. With Amos Cooke, he founded Castle & Cooke Company in 1851 – it grew into being one of Hawaiʻi’s “Big Five” companies.

One of his ten children would surpass him as a businessman. James Bicknell Castle was born November 27, 1855 in Honolulu to Samuel and Mary (Tenney) Castle. He attended Punahou School 1867–1873, and then Oberlin College.

Castle acquired property in Waikīkī; it had been the home of Boki, the governor of O’ahu, and his wife Liliha. In 1899, James B. Castle built his Waikīkī home and called it ‘Kainalu.’ It was a lavishly furnished four-story mansion with extensive grounds, an ocean pier and other amenities.

In business, he greatly expanded Castle & Cooke in the sugar and railroad industries. One of his first moves was in 1890 when Lorrin Thurston and others joined to create the Kahuku Plantation Company on land subleased from Benjamin Dillingham.

Castle is credited with winning control of the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company from Claus Spreckels in 1898, which he sold to Alexander & Baldwin for a large share of their stock. He later bought large amounts of land, such as Kāneʻohe Ranch.

He then moved to his next phase of his work, which was to connect the Dillingham’s Oahu Railway & Land Co. (OR&L) in Kahuku with the proposed street railway system in Honolulu by way of the Windward Coast.

His plan was to extend his Koʻolau Railroad Co. south of Kahana Bay through Kāneʻohe and Kailua, and on to Waimanalo where it would go through a tunnel and into Manoa Valley and connect with the Rapid Transit & Land Co.

Unfortunately, he died in 1918 before the project could be completed; however, he ran the line from Kahuku to Kahana Bay and extended his plantation and used this railway to haul it to the Kahuku mill. The train service completely closed down by 1952.

When Castle died, his widow found the beachfront property more than she wished to keep up. Mrs. James B. Castle was impressed by the charitable work being done by the Elks (the Honolulu Elks Lodge 616 was established on April 15, 1901) and in 1920 sold them 155,000 square feet on the beach at Waikīkī complete with lavish home, for $1 a square foot.

For decades, the Elks membership and officers worked to raise funds to pay off the mortgage. Every possible method of raising funds was tried. Elks held carnivals, “smokers,” baseball matches, boxing matches, theatricals, auctions, circuses, concerts and dances.

Funds were raised for charity, and a bit set aside to retire the mortgage. Finally, on March 3, 1943, as members sang “Auld Lang Syne;” the mortgage was burned with great ceremony.

Several times since 1920 the sale of the property was proposed and even authorized, but motions were defeated or rescinded. Most prominent was a protracted discussion with the Outrigger Canoe Club, which was looking for a new home.

Between 1954 and 1956, Outrigger Canoe Club made several offers to purchase about half the Castle property. All were refused. Eventually, in 1955, the Elks agreed to lease property to Outrigger. Negotiations continued, and a lease was signed effective November 17, 1956.

In 1958 the Lodge determined to raze Kainalu and rebuild a new lodge. After an April gala aloha event, the old Lodge was demolished in June of 1959. Ground breaking for the new building took place on August 17, 1959. On June 20, 1960, the first meeting was held in a new building, the present lodge building.

In the sand, constantly washed by the waves, are 6 flat-topped black basalt rocks set in cement. The rock is said to come from the Kaimuki Quarry. Also visible is one round, bowl-shaped object. These are the last remnants of the James Castle home.

The multi-sided stones were the footings for pillars holding up the Castle home’s dining room. Facing the ocean, 9 tubular wooden pillars sat on the round cement footings, and in the rear a second row of heavier pillars sat on the lava rock.

In 2007, a rent dispute between the Elks Lodge and Outrigger Canoe Club was settled by a three-member arbitration panel. Terms of the new rent between the next-door neighbors were not disclosed because of a confidentiality agreement (the Elks Lodge, the landowner, was seeking up to $1 million or more a year in rent from the canoe club for a 99-year lease that was renegotiated midway through the term.)

James Castle and his wife had one child, Harold Castle; in the form of various gifts, Harold Castle is the man behind Castle Hospital, Castle High School, Kainalu Elementary, Central Union Windward Church and the Windward Branch of Hawaiʻi Pacific University.

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An aerial view of the Elks Lodge’s original Waikiki building.

James Castle estate built in 1899 and sold to the Elks Club in 1920. Torn down in 1951

Mrs. Castle, widow of businessman James B. Castle, sold their Waikiki home to the Elks after he died in 1918.

May 24, 2019 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Downtown Honolulu In 1950

A picture is worth a thousand words; they (and maps) tell stories. This map tells lots of stories … and brings back some great memories.

OK, I wasn’t even born when the map was printed. But a few years later, when I was a kid, there are a lot of familiar places (and associated stories) depicted on this map.

Take some time looking at the ownership and operations up and down the streets. There have been lots of changes since then – but the memories are still here.

Back then, Bishop only went to Beretania – with no further mauka extension (it finally popped through and extended/ connected to the Pali Highway and became the windward gateway into “Town.”)
Bishop Street was the home of the Big 5. Bishop Street was and continues to be the center of Hawai‘i commerce and banking (in the center of the map, running up/down.)

Did you notice their placement on Bishop Street (and to each other) back then (as well as the battling banks across Bishop Street from each other?)

Five major companies emerged to provide operations, marketing, supplies and other services for the plantations and eventually came to own and manage most of them. They became known as the Big 5:

Amfac (1849) – Hackfeld & Company – a German firm that later became American Factors Ltd (Amfac.) It was started by a young German selling goods to whalers and grew to manage and control various sugar operations.
Alexander & Baldwin (1870) – started by Samuel Thomas Alexander and Henry Perrine Baldwin, sons of missionaries. It was the only Big 5 that started in sugar. Their irrigation project sent water 17-miles from Haleakala to 3,000-dry sugar cane acres in central Maui.
Theo H. Davies (1845) – a British firm that started as a small isle trading company and expanded into other businesses including sugar, transportation and insurance.
Castle & Cooke (1851) – founded by missionaries (Samuel Northrup Castle and Amos Starr Cooke,) which originally sold sewing machines, farm tools and medicine in Hawaii. It later bought stock in sugar plantations and focused on sugar companies.
C. Brewer – (1826) founded by James Hunnewell, an officer on the Thaddeus that brought the original missionaries to Hawai‘i in 1820. He returned in 1826 to set up a trading company specialized in supplying whaling ships but then moved into sugar and molasses. The firm’s namesake, Capt. Charles Brewer, became a partner in 1836.

Another Hawai‘i family and company, Dillingham, started in the late-1800s, although not a “Big Five,” deserves some attention – it’s offices were down there, too (next to the Big 5.)

They played a critical role in agricultural operations through leasing land and controlling some operations, but mostly moved the various goods on OR&L.

Back in the ‘50s, Fort Street was “it” for shopping (to the left of Bishop Street, also running mauka/makai – now, it’s mostly a pedestrian mall.)

You can read the names of old Honolulu retail iconic institutions – Liberty House, McInerny, Watumull and Andrade – along with Kress, Woolworths, National Dollar and Longs Drugs.

I remember the “moving windows” during Christmas season; we’d pile in the station wagon and take a special trip over the Pali to downtown to Christmas shop (the Pali Tunnels and Ala Moana Center weren’t open until 1959.)

We’d walk up and down Fort Street and look at all the animated window displays, then stop in at a restaurant for dinner (one of our favorites was Fisherman’s Wharf at Kewalo Basin.)

‘Iolani Palace is on the site labeled Territorial Executive Grounds (we’re still nine years away from statehood;) mauka of it had different uses – it’s now the State Capitol and Hotel Street walkway.

The YWCA (just to the left of ‘Iolani Palace) is still going strong and nearby was the YMCA, now converted to the Hawai‘i State Art Museum and state offices.

The Alexander Young Hotel, opened in 1903 (on Bishop between Hotel and King,) was later converted hold offices and was demolished in 1981.

You can see some roads have changed or have been consolidated into adjoining properties. Did you notice, back then, Ala Moana/Nimitz on the map was called Queen Street?

In my early years in real estate (while still a student at UH, I used to do research in the Tax Office and Bureau of Conveyances (lower right of map.) Fifty-years later, I directed DLNR which now has the Bureau of Conveyances under its management umbrella.

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Bishop Street ended at Beretania in 1959

American Factors Building was demolishe

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Theo H Davies Building-1920s

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Alexander&Baldwin-Building

First_Hawaiian_Bank_Building (old)

Dillingham_Transportation_Building

Queens_Hospital-1954

Schuman Carriage-corner of Beretania and Richards-the entire block was torn down to build the State Capitol Building-1950s

McInerny

Alexander Young Building

Honolulu Iron Works 1960. Today it is the location of Restaurant Row.

Honolulu Harbor-1950s

Fort Street looking mauka from King street-11-08-59

Downtown Honolulu in 1956. McInerny on the left, and the overhead lines are for trolley buses

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April 3, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mānoa Heritage Center

Mānoa Heritage Center is a non-profit organization, whose mission is to promote stewardship of the natural and cultural heritage of Hawai‘i. The site consists of Kūali‘i, a Tudor-style house built in 1911, Kūka‘ō‘ō Heiau and a Native Hawaiian garden.

The site is the former home of Charles Montague Cooke, Jr. Charles Montague Cooke Sr gave the land to his son in 1902. On it his son established Kaimi dairy.

In 1911, Emory & Webb, a major architectural firm in Honolulu, designed this house, and it stands as one of their major works from this period. Other works of theirs from this time include the YMCA and the First Methodist Church.

Amos Starr Cooke came to Hawai‘i in 1837 as a missionary. He and his wife Juliette, were selected by King Kamehameha III to educate the next generation of Hawai‘i leadership (including Kamehameha IV and V, Lunalilo, Kalākaua, Lili‘uokalani and others)

Cooke later founded the firm of Castle & Cooke in 1851, which became one of the ‘Big Five’ sugar companies, which dominated so much of Hawai’ i’s economic, social and political history up through World War II.

Charles Montague Cooke Jr. was the grandson of Amos Starr Cooke and the son of Charles Montague Cooke. His father was the President of both C Brewer, another of the ‘Big Five’ firms, and the Bank of Hawai’i.

Dr. Charles Montague Cooke Jr. was born in Honolulu in 1874, and attended Punahou and Yale. In 1901 he received his PhD and went to Europe to do scientific work in London and Paris.

In 1902 he returned to Hawai’i to work at the Bishop Museum, where he made valuable contributions to the field of malachology, the branch of zoology that deals with mollusks, especially with regards to the study of Hawaiian land snails. He headed a number of scientific expeditions throughout Polynesia and was the author of 45 scientific works. (NPS)

Kūali‘i, the house on the site, is a two-story Tudor revival style house. It is situated at the top of a hill in Mānoa Valley and has a large front lawn gracefully landscaped with several mature monkey pod and shower trees. The front of the house is separated from Mānoa Road by a stone wall, and a circular drive provides vehicular access to the property. (NPS)

The lava rock basement and first floor support half-timber and stucco second and third floors. The home has three bays with a large 2-story porte cochere off the center bay. Two stonewall chimneys anchor the outside bays. The stone was quarried in the front year where the driveway now circles between two stone pillars of the front rock wall.

The house was originally going to be sited where a heiau (temple) was situated – and use the stone from the heiau as the foundation. Instead, the house was located so as not to disturb the heiau. (Ferraro; Pōhaku) The heiau was later restored.

According to legends, the menehune built a fort and heiau at the top of the hill ‘Ulumalu. They were driven away from their fort by the high chief Kūali‘i during his reign (sometime in the 1700s). Kuali‘i rebuilt it after his seizure of the fort. (Cultural Surveys)

This heiau was the center piece of a string of heiaus that strung across the Kona district. The existence of such an important heiau at the mouth of the valley could be taken as an indication of the early importance of Mānoa.

Another legend says that the menehune were driven from their fort and temple by the owls, who became their bitter enemies.
The legends say that the fairy people, the Menehunes, built a temple and a fort a little farther up the valley above Pu‘u-pueo, at a place called Kūka‘ō‘ō.

Surrounding Kūka‘ō‘ō Heiau is a Native Hawaiian garden featuring endemic and indigenous plants, as well as Polynesian introductions.

In addition, a Polynesian Introduced Garden offers an array of ‘Canoe Plants’ representing those that may have come with ancient seafarers from the Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa and other South Pacific archipelagoes.

The first settlers of Hawaiʻi arriving by canoe, brought many of their favorite plants for food, seasoning, medicine, making household items and implements to farm, build structures and use for clothing.

Taro (kalo) became the staple of the Hawaiian diet and they developed hundreds of varieties, adapted to suit diverse terrain and weather conditions. Sweet potato (uala) was sometimes substituted for taro in the drier areas.

Tumeric (ʻolena) was used to produce a brilliant yellow orange dye for clothing, coconut (niu) for bowls, drums and roof tops, and kawa (ʻawa) to ease a painful headache were treasured supplies. (Mānoa Heritage Center)

The house, heiau and gardens are part of the Mānoa Heritage Center, a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote stewardship of the natural and cultural heritage of Hawai‘i. It was the home of Sam and Mary Cooke and the restoration of the property was through their efforts.

Currently, Kūka‘ō‘ō Heiau and garden tours are available, guided by volunteer docents. Reservations are needed with two-week advance notice preferred.

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Manoa Heritage Center map

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August 13, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Big Five (plus 2)

“By 1941, every time a native Hawaiian switched on his lights, turned on the gas or rode on a street car, he paid a tiny tribute into Big Five coffers.” (Alexander MacDonald, 1944)

The story of Hawaii’s largest companies dominates Hawaiʻi’s economic history. Since the early/mid-1800s, until relatively recently, five major companies emerged and dominated the Island’s economic framework. Their common trait: they were focused on agriculture – sugar.

They became known as the Big Five:

C. Brewer & Co.
Founded: October 1826; Capt. James Hunnewell (American Sea Captain, Merchant; Charles Brewer was American Merchant)
Incorporated: February 7, 1883

Theo H. Davies & Co.
Founded: 1845; James and John Starkey, and Robert C. Janion (English Merchants; Theophilus Harris Davies was Welch Merchant)
Incorporated: January 1894

Amfac
Founded: 1849; Heinrich Hackfeld and Johann Carl Pflueger (German Merchants)
Incorporated: 1897 (H Hackfeld & Co;) American Factors Ltd, 1918

Castle & Cooke
Founded: 1851; Samuel Northrup Castle and Amos Starr Cooke (American Mission Secular Agents)
Incorporated: 1894

Alexander & Baldwin
Founded: 1870; Samuel Thomas Alexander & Henry Perrine Baldwin (American, Sons of Missionaries)
Incorporated: 1900

Some suggest they were started and run by the missionaries. Actually, only Castle & Cooke had direct ties to the mission – Castle ran the ‘depository’ and Cooke was a teacher.

Alexander & Baldwin were sons of missionaries, but not a formal part of the mission. Brewer was an American sea captain and merchant; the founders of Davies were English merchants and the founders of Amfac were German merchants.

Hawaiʻi’s industrial plantations began to emerge at this time (1860s;) they were further fueled by the Treaty of Reciprocity – 1875 between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market. Through the treaty, the US obtained Pearl Harbor and Hawai‘i’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into U.S. markets for their sugar.

As the sugar industry pushed ahead, something else new was introduced into the economic scheme of things. In Honolulu two or three new firms began business solely to handle the affairs of the scattered plantations.

They began by acting as selling agents for the planters. Gradually they took over other functions: financing crops, importing labor, purchasing machinery for the planters and serving in all ways as their business agents. The new businesses soon found themselves running the sugar industry.

By the 1880s, five of these concerns, called factors, eventually dominated the field. How effectively the Big Five could band together as one against outside forces whether the enemy was foreign capital, insects, labor, competing products or disease was well demonstrated by their Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, more familiarly known as the HSPA. (MacDonald)

This group organization for Hawaii’s sugar industry was founded in 1882 as the Planters’ Labor and Supply Company when the planters found they had common problems in irrigating the sugar lands, growing the cane, and finding labor. That was its immediate official purpose.

“Everything that comes into the territory comes through a large corporation. The independent businessman who attempts to enter business here immediately finds that even nationally advertised lines from the mainland are tied up by the Big Five. It is almost impossible to get an independent line of business as they have everything – lumber paint, right down the line.” (Edward Walker, High Sheriff of Hawaiʻi, 1937; Kent)

Acting as agents for thirty-six of the thirty-eight sugar plantations, the Big Five openly monopolized the sugar trade. Twenty-nine firms, producing seven out of every eight tons of sugar exported from the Islands, refined, markets and distributed through the Big Five’s wholly owned California and Hawaiian Sugar Company, whose refinery, the largest in the world, was on San Francisco Bay. (Kent)

They branched out into other businesses. To squeeze additional profits out of the sugar trade, they started their own refinery in California; it was to become the largest in the world. They built up a fleet of ships, the Matson line, to carry the sugar away and to bring back goods and passengers.

They developed inter-island shipping, built hotels, put capital into insurance, cattle, pineapples, banking. They took over bodily the wholesaling of goods coming into the Islands; ninety percent of retail stock came from their warehouses.

Their capital started the public utilities. Their street railway transported Hawaiians, their gas and electric plants lighted the city, they acquired the communications systems. (MacDonald)

The sugar industry was the prime force in transforming Hawaiʻi from a traditional, insular, agrarian and debt‐ridden society into a multicultural, cosmopolitan and prosperous one. (Carol Wilcox)

With statehood in 1959 and the almost simultaneous introduction of passenger jet airplanes, the tourist industry began to grow rapidly.

The industry came to maturity by the turn of the century; the industry peaked in the 1930s. Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar. (That plummeted to 492,000-tons in 1995.)

A majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s. As sugar declined, tourism took its place – and far surpassed it. Like many other societies, Hawaii underwent a profound transformation from an agrarian to a service economy.

There were a couple other associated entities that were associated with the Big 5” Dillingham (Benjamin Franklin Dillingham) and Campbell (James Campbell) and their associated companies.

Click HERE to view/download for more information on Hawai‘i’s Big 5 (plus 2).

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