Hamakua | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

January 2, 2020 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

Did The Mongoose Idea Work?

OK – in reading this, remember, this discussion is not in defense of the mongoose – nor whether the importation was a good idea.

Rather, it is addressing the age-old urban legend about the apparent conflicting activity habits of each. I repeatedly hear that mongoose don’t kill rats – primarily because their activity times are different.

Contrary to the diurnal (behavior characterized by activity during the day and sleeping at night)/nocturnal (behavior characterized by activity during the night and sleeping during the day) conflict between the mongoose and rat – and apparent loss of the predator-prey relationship – reporting at the time of the introduction of the mongoose state sugar producers saw a marked reduction in the pesky rats in their plantations.

Pacific Sugar Mill on the Hāmākua Coast had the distinction of introducing the first mongoose into Hawaiʻi. In 1883, WH Purvis imported them from India and Africa for rat control on the plantation.

Later, Joseph Marsden (‘Mongoose Joe,’) former Commissioner of Agriculture, is credited with expanding the import. “He brought the little animal from Jamaica, where it had the reputation of a good rat exterminator”. (Hawaiian Gazette, March 16, 1906)

“At that time there were considerable portions of our cane fields that were so badly damaged by rats that they were not worth harvesting and now rat eaten cane is almost unknown.” (HA Baldwin – Maui News, August 5, 1921)

“The ravages of rats in the cane fields of Hāmākua previous to the introduction of the mongoose were so alarming as to cause fears that cane culture would have to be abandoned. As soon as a cane field was planted it seemed to be a new breeding ground for the rats, which appeared to exist by the hundreds of thousands.” (Evening Bulletin, December 5, 1898)

“The next importation was by the Hilo planters, who in 1883 sent Mr. Jonathan Tucker to Jamaica in the West Indies to procure mongoose for them. Mr. Tucker returned with 72 mongoose in good condition, which were liberated in the cane fields in Hilo. They soon increased in numbers, and the ravages of the rats correspondingly diminished.” (Evening Bulletin, December 5, 1898)

“The planters of Hāmākua, hearing of the good work done by the mongoose in Hilo, decided to import some on their own account (in 1885.”) (Evening Bulletin, December 5, 1898)

“Many people feel that the mongoose has failed as an enemy of the rat, but the records, both in Hawaiʻi and Jamaica, indicate that the rats have been reduced to an appreciable extent by the mongoose.” (Maui News, August 12, 1921)

“Evidence in favor of the mongoose may be seen today in Kauaʻi. The mongoose has not been introduced on that island, and the rat menace is in general more serious there than it is with the other islands of Hawaiʻi.” (The Garden Island, August 23, 1921)

In less than two years after the importation of the mongoose, the rats were so diminished that it was and is now a rare thing to see a stick of cane that is eaten, and the plantations have so extended their plantations that they now grind nearly all the year, giving employment to double and treble the number of hands with a corresponding benefit to the trade of Honolulu. (Evening Bulletin, December 5, 1895)

“When they set the mongoose to work he soon cleaned the cane fields of mice and then went for the rats which speedily met a similar fate. Having exterminated all those he next went for eggs next for chickens and then he went for the henroosts and fowls.” (The Independent, April 25, 1898)

“There is no doubt that the mongoose has saved the planters of Hāmākua thousands of dollars. In former years it was no uncommon thing to see one-fourth and even one-half of the cane left on the fields, the rats having rendered that portion unfit for grinding by eating the stalks near the ground.” (The Garden Island, August 23, 1921)

“The drawback to the Mongoose is that he does not confine his menu to rats but varies it with all kinds of barnyard fowl and eggs and also ground-nesting game birds form a good part of his dietary. Another regrettable thing about him is that he is very fond of our field lizards or skinks which have an important part to play in the ‘balance of nature.’” (HA Baldwin – Maui News, August 5, 1921)

“These lizards feed on ticks among other things and since the advent of the Mongoose and the consequent scarcity of lizards ticks have become a bothersome pest to stock raisers. Ticks, however, in sufficient quantities are said to be deadly to the Mongoose and to keep him down in numbers.” (HA Baldwin – Maui News, August 5, 1921)

“The lizard is the natural enemy of bugs and insects including mosquitoes, as he lives on nothing else and never in any way harms plant life. When I first came to the Kona district in 1886, the country was well stocked with lizards and all kinds of fruits were growing in pro fusion.” (Coerper – Maui News, April 15, 1905)

“Kitchen gardens contained cabbages, tomatoes and all other varieties of vegetables which were free from insect pests; and while the leaf hopper could be found in the canefields he was kept so well in check by the lizard that he never caused any trouble.” (Coerper – Maui News, April 15, 1905)

“But later on when the mongoose came, he commenced a campaign of destruction on the lizard with the result that the lizard decreased and the pests increased to such an extent that today almost nothing can be raised in the district and fruit trees that used to bear a heavy crop of fruit are now barren and pest ridden.” (Coerper – Maui News, April 15, 1905)

OK, again, before anyone goes off on the consequence to native birds, etc, remember the context of this summary –it’s about whether mongoose rid rats from the cane fields.

I prepared this because, until looking closer into it, I, too, believed that because of the diurnal/nocturnal relationship, they never saw each other. However, based on the reports back then, from the sugar planters’ perspective, it worked; damage due to rats gnawing at the sugar was reduced to a level of nominal impact.

Unfortunately, like many other bad decisions that were made before adequate analysis of unintended consequences, the mongoose is negatively impacting many other areas in our Islands … and, except for some remnant operations, sugar (and its problems with rats) is effectively gone.

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January 21, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Scotch Coast

Answering a recruiting call from Hawai‘i for teachers, Marsue McGinnis McShane arrived at Laupahoehoe School in September of 1945. … “We were invited to all the parties and they gave a big party for us, the plantation.”

“(W)e went up to the [plantation] manager’s house. They were expecting us and we had tea and everything. [The area] was called the Scotch Coast, [because] a lot of the people were real Scotsmen.”

“And there were these Scotsmen and I remember they put on their kilts for us and did the dances. One guy, the one who was head of the sugar processing, the raw sugar, played the bagpipes.” (McShane)

“It has been said that ‘Scotland’s greatest export product is Scotsmen’ and many of them turned up in Hawaii beginning with the two Scots aboard Capt. James Cook’s Resolution when he discovered Hawaii for the West.” (LA Times)

“One well-known Scotsman was Capt. Alexander Adams, a wide-ranging navigator and friend of Hawaii’s first monarch King Kamehameha I.”

“In the 19th century a Scot, Robert Crichton Wyllie of Ayeshire, was Minister of Foreign Affairs under Kings Kamehameha III and IV.”

“From Edinburgh came Archibald Scott Cleghorn, who became governor of Oahu and husband of Princess Likelike. He was also father of a famous beauty, Princess Kaiulani, to whom another Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, dedicated a poem.”

“The Hawaiian island that drew the most Scots was the Big Island of Hawaii. Some Scots undoubtedly found pleasure in settling in the island’s Waimea-Kohala area because its cool, misty upland climate reminded them of their own misty isles.” (LA Times)

“Unlike other large ethnic groups, the Scots never came in large groups or by the shipload. And in a society where ethnicity was easily identified, the Scots were simply part of the ‘haoles’”. (Orange County Register)

“The Scots came for various reasons. Some came for the pleasure of Hawaii. Others followed kinsmen already in Hawaii when economic conditions became poor in Scotland.”

“The Scottish emigrants came mostly from rural areas of Scotland and settled in country areas of Hawaii, particularly on the sugar plantations.”

“Eventually, so many Scots settled on the plantations along the Hamakua Coast that the area became known as the ‘Scotch Coast.’”

“On Saturday nights the Scots came into Hilo, the island’s main city, and congregated at the end of the railroad line at the corner of Kamehameha Street and Waianuenue Avenue. It was eventually known as the ‘Scotsmen’s corner.’” (LA Times)

“The Scots kept their ties to the mother country by letter, and by occasionally recruiting kinsmen to come to the islands to join them. They kept their traditional foods, as did other ethnic groups, and scones, oatmeal and shortbread were common on the island.”

“But the Scots also were canny enough to assimilate, or at least acculturate. An observer of the Scots in Hawaii, George Mair, described what a new Scot did when he arrived on the Island of Hawaii.

“‘He would get outfitted, learn about cane, learn pidgin.’ Only a few Scots maintained their British citizenship and most quickly worked at becoming American citizens.” (Orange County Register)

“A period of intense emigration was 1880 to 1930, when many of the Scots on the island sent back to Scotland for friends and relatives.”

“Most came from eastern Scotland – Kirriemuir, Aberdeen, Portknockie, Inverness, Angus and Perth. A few came from the Highlands.” (LA Times) “On the plantations the Scots worked quickly into managerial positions.” (Orange Coast Register)

“The calibre of these men were recorded by others, in particular the plantation owners. John T Moir said, ‘They were reliable men and whenever they were given a job to do, they saw it through. There was no slacking.’”

“At one time there were 26 sugar plantations along the ‘Scotch Coast’ and every one had Scots at some managerial level.” (LA Times)

“Over the Big Island, with Hawaiian Air Lines – ‘You’re now flying over the Hamakua coast, better known as the Scotch coast,’ said our purser. ‘Below us is the most productive soil in the world. As much as 300,000 pounds of sugar cane have been grown per acre on these plantations.’”

“He could have added that from an 180-mile square area, slightly larger than that of New York City, Hawaii produces over a 1,000,000 tons of sugar, manufactured in the US,’ pointed out my fellow passenger, Roy Leffingwell, of the Hawaii Sugar Plantations association. ‘It’s Hawaii’s main industry ….’” (Burns; Medford Mail Tribune)

Large coastal sugar promoter Theo H Davies hired as manager a Scotch engineer then operating a small Hilo foundry. The new manager was Alexander Young with whom Davies joined forces to organize Waiakea Mill Company.

Years later Davies was a stockholder with Young in the organization of von Hamm-Young Company, forerunner of The Hawaii Corporation. Principals were Young’s son Archibald, and Conrad C. von Hamm. An early project was the Alexander Young Hotel. (Greaney)

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Portable sugar cane flumes in field near Kukuihaele, Hawaii, looking toward Waipio-(BM)

Hamakua Sugar Worker-Christensen

Hamakua_Mill_Paauilo-1935-(bishopmuseum)

Sugar cane flume, Hamakua Hawaii-(BM)

Laupahoehoe_Point-1885

Hamakua Sugar

Koholalele Landing-Paauilo Landing-1900

SS Helene loading sugar at Koholalele Landing-Nelson

Sugar coming down the wire at Kukuihaele Landing-Nelson

Sugar on a car coming down the wire at Koholalele Landing-Nelson

December 30, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kaiwiki Sugar Company

“Sugar is now the great interest of the islands. Christian missions and whaling have had their day, and now people talk sugar. Hawaii thrills to the news of a cent up or a cent down in the American market.”

“There are 200,000 acres of productive soil on the islands, of which only a fifteenth is under cultivation, and of this large area 150,000 is said to be specially adapted for sugar culture.”

“Herein is a prospective Utopia, and people are always dreaming of the sugar-growing capacities of the belt of rich disintegrated lava which slopes upwards from the sea to the bases of the mountains.” (Isabella Bird, 1872)

One such operation was Kaiwiki Sugar Company that began in the 1860s when the sugar industry was young and sugar production was more an individual effort than a corporate venture.

“Then there is the sugar plantation of Kaiwiki, with its patches of bright green cane, its flumes crossing the track above our heads, bringing the cane down from the upland cane-fields to the crushing-mill, and the shifting, busy scenes of the sugar-boiling season.”

“This is a most picturesque spot, the junction of two clear bright rivers, and a few native houses and a Chinaman’s store are grouped close by under some palms, with the customary loungers on horseback, asking and receiving nuhou, or news, at the doors.”

“There we met parties of natives, all flower-wreathed, talking and singing, coming gaily down on their sure— footed horses, saluting us with the invariable ‘Aloha.’”

“Every now and then we passed native churches, with spires painted white, or a native schoolhouse, or a group of scholars all ferns and flowers. The greenness of the vegetation merits the term ‘dazzling.’ We think England green, but its colour is poor and pale as compared with that of tropical Hawaii.”

“The unique beauty of this coast is what are called gulches – narrow deep ravines or gorges, from 100 to 2,000 feet in depth, each with a series of cascades from 10 to 1,800 feet in height.”

“I dislike reducing their glories to the baldness of figures, but the depth of these clefts (originally, probably, the seams caused by fire torrents), cut and worn by the fierce streams fed by the snows of Mauna Kea, and the rains of the forest belt, cannot otherwise be expressed.”

“The cascades are most truly beautiful, gleaming white among the dark depths of foliage far away, and falling into deep limpid basins, festooned and overhung with the richest and greenest vegetation of this prolific climate … Each gulch opens on a velvet lawn close to the sea, and most of them have space for a few grass houses, with cocoanut trees, bananas, and kalo patches. “

“There are sixty-nine of these extraordinary chasms within a distance of thirty miles! … The descent into some of them is quite alarming. You go down almost standing in your stirrups, at a right angle with the horse’s head, and up, grasping his mane to prevent the saddle slipping.” (Isabella Bird, 1872)

“The plantations … enjoy special advantages, for by turning some of the innumerable mountain streams into flumes the owners can bring a great part of their cane and all their wood for fuel down to the mills without other expense than the original cost of the woodwork.”

“Mr A has 100 mules, but the greater part of their work is ploughing and hauling the kegs of sugar down to the cove, where in favourable weather they are put on board of a schooner for Honolulu. This plantation employs 185 hands, native and Chinese, and turns out 600 tons of sugar a year.”

“I have made a second tour through the factory, and am rather disgusted with sugar making. ‘All’s well that ends well,’ however, and the delicate crystalline result makes one forget the initial stages of the manufacture.”

“The cane, stripped of its leaves, passes from the flumes under the rollers of the crushing-mill, where it is subjected to a pressure of five or six tons. One hundred pounds of cane under this process yield up from sixty-five to seventy-five pounds of juice.”

“This juice passes, as a pale green cataract, into a trough, which conducts it into a vat, where it is dosed with quicklime to neutralize its acid, and is then run off into large heated metal vessels. At this stage the smell is abominable, and the turbid fluid, with a thick scum upon it, is simply disgusting.”

“After a preliminary heating and skimming it is passed off into iron pans, several in a row, and boiled and skimmed, and ladled from one to the other till it reaches the last, which is nearest to the fire, and there it boils with the greatest violence, seething and foaming, bringing all the remaining scum to the surface.”

“After the concentration has proceeded far enough, the action of the heat is suspended, and the reddish-brown, oily-looking liquid is drawn into the vacuum-pan till it is about a third full; the concentration is completed by boiling the juice in vacuo at a temperature of 150 degrees, and even lower.”

“As the boiling proceeds, the sugar boiler tests the contents of the pan by withdrawing a few drops, and holding them up to the light on his finger; and, by certain minute changes in their condition, he judges when it is time to add an additional quantity.”

“When the pan is full, the contents have thickened into the consistency of thick gruel by the formation of minute crystals, and are then allowed to descend into an heater, where they are kept warm till they can be run into ‘forms’ or tanks, where they are allowed to granulate.”

“The liquid, or molasses, which remains after the first crystallization is returned to the vacuum pan and reboiled, and this reboiling of the drainings is repeated two or three times, with a gradually decreasing result in the quality and quantity of the sugar.”

“The last process, which is used for getting rid of the treacle, is a most beautiful one. The mass of sugar and treacle is put into what are called ‘centrifugal pans,’ which are drums about three feet in diameter and two feet high, which make about 1,000 revolutions a minute.”

“These have false interiors of wire gauze, and the mass is forced violently against their sides by centrifugal action, and they let the treacle whirl through, and retain the sugar crystals, which lie in a dry heap in the centre.”

“The cane is being flumed in with great rapidity, and the factory is working till late at night. The cane from which the juice has been expressed, called “trash,” is dried and used as fuel for the furnace which supplies the steam power. The sugar is packed in kegs, and a cooper and carpenter, as well as other mechanics, are employed.” (Isabella Bird, 1872)

After several acquisitions and changes in operation by it and other sugar plantations, in 1909, the defunct O‘okala Sugar Company (it was bankrupt and the controlling interest passed to Theo. H. Davies & C) was sold to Kaiwiki and it was renamed Kaiwiki Sugar Company.

O‘okala Sugar Company owned a total of 8,679 acres, its cane land was limited to 1,405 in fee simple and 3,005 acres of leased land. Located between the Hāmākua district and the rain-drenched lands of the Hilo district, the land rose to an elevation of 1,800 feet, with steep slopes and a frontage on the sea of about 4 ½ miles and a depth of 2 ½ miles.

Kaiwiki Sugar Company’s almost fifty years of existence ended when the company and neighboring Laupahoehoe Sugar Company merged on January 3, 1957. It should not be confused with Kaiwiki Milling Company.

Kaiwiki Milling Company was formed by 150 stockholders holders (all were Portuguese homesteaders) who built a mill near their properties just outside of Hilo.

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Ookala Sugar Mill-Malecek

August 9, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hotel Honokaʻa Club

In 1878, three commercial sugar plantations (Honokaʻa Sugar Company, Paʻauhau Sugar Company and Pacific Sugar Mill) existed in Hāmākua in the vicinity of a village that later became Honokaʻa.

A labor shortage beginning in the mid-19th century prompted the importation of foreign workers. The Chinese were the first to arrive, followed by Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Puerto Rican and Filipinos over the next 40 years.

The workers, many married with families, were housed in 13-camps along the Hāmākua coast near Honokaʻa. As these workers completed their contracts with the plantations, many moved to Honokaʻa and began businesses, providing the impetus for the development of the town.

As Honokaʻa grew and evolved, a variety of businesses, offering wide-ranging choices of goods and services, eventually made Honokaʻa the largest town on the Hāmākua coast and the second largest on the island (behind Hilo.)

In 1910, the population of Honokaʻa stood at 9,037, a population sufficient to support a hotel along with lodging for travelers, salesmen and laborers in transit to the plantations to support the growing village.

Hotel Honokaʻa Club did not have a name when it first opened, and was allegedly labeled as the result of a vote by club “members,” who were likely boarders and community members who frequented the hotel.

The “Club” in the name reflects the use of the establishment from its inception as a nexus for entertainment and drinking, while the hotel portion served as a residence and lodging for immigrants, unmarried sugar cane workers, paniolo (cowboys), and travelling salesmen. (Star Bulletin; March 25, 1948; NPS)

“At that time the majority of the key plantation men were unmarried, and it was their custom to convene on Saturday nights for merry and lengthy sessions at the hotel. They came on horseback and departed the same way although not always with the same horse.”

“As years went by the hotel became the ‘club’ with all its members and eventually in a duly called ‘committee’ hearing the name was voted to become the Honokaa Club Hotel.” (Star Bulletin; March 25, 1948; NPS)

The original site of the hotel complex lay along the Government Road (Māmane Street) on the Hilo-side of the present Bank of Hawaiʻi.

The hotel/club functioned as a local gathering place that provided accommodations, temporary sales space for the display of commercial samples and wares by traveling salesmen, and a dining room and bar facility (that was the site of numerous local social occasions and get-togethers from the 1920s through the 1960s and beyond.) (SHPD)

Salesmen who stayed at the hotel were known as “drummers” commercial travelers, runners or “gripmen” (“grip” referring to the trunk or suitcase carried by salesmen.) These sales personnel travelled through Hāmākua and Kohala approximately every two weeks in a circuit from Honolulu to Kawaihae to Laupāhoehoe to Hilo “drumming up” business. (Star Bulletin, March 25, 1948; NPS)

The Hotel Honokaʻa Club is an example of the small hotels built at the turn of the 19th century by Japanese immigrants to mainly serve their countrymen in towns such as Captain Cook, Waiʻōhinu, Kohala and Honokaa.

Opened in 1912 by Kumakichi Morita, the original Honokaʻa Hotel Club was styled like a modern motor court, with rooms strung together in a row.

By 1915 it is listed in the local business directory as the “Honokaʻa Hotel Club – A First Class Hotel and Boarding House, Rates $3.00 per Day and Up.” By 1920 rates had increased to $4.00 per day. The Hotel Honokaa Club was at the present location by about 1927.

Kumakichi Morita, the hotel’s first manager/owner, trained as a chef in American cuisine and became chef to Prince Jonah Kūhīo Kalanianaʻole. Unfortunately, the Prince did not appreciate the American cuisine and Kumakichi looked elsewhere for employment, arriving in Honokaʻa to cook for the manager of the Honokaʻa Sugar Company.

From 1943-1945, over 50,000 US Marines lived and trained in and around Waimea and the Kohala Coast. Camp Tarawa was originally built by the 2nd Marine Division, but upon the 2nd’s deployment to Saipan, the 5th Marine Division moved in to train for the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Alfred Carter (manager of Parker Ranch) had historically limited the availability of liquor in Waimea, so when the Marines came they found that town dry.

The soldiers simply followed the Waimea ranch cowboys down the hill to “wet” Honokaʻa. Hotel Honokaʻa Club was one of many “watering holes” in Honokaʻa that benefited from the servicemen’s patronage. Camp Tarawa closed in November 1945.

After the war, the hotel expanded its activities focusing on locals, hosting weddings, high school group gatherings and lūʻau events. In 1948, the hotel expanded, adding a second story containing six bedroom suites. Five new bedrooms were added downstairs and new bathrooms were attached to the original bedrooms.

In 1960, the Moritas added a cocktail lounge dubbed the “Waipiʻo Room,” and in the 1970s they inaugurated a bar named the “Dan McGuire Left-Handed Martini Room,” after the well-known sports writer.

Further pranks related to the Martini Room included Jim Nabors’ (Gomer Pyle) dedication of the “Jim Nabors Right-handed Pay Toilet.” (Honokaa Historical Project)

Hotel Honokaa Club is a two story-wood frame “plantation style” commercial building. Defining features include a totan (corrugated metal) roof, single wall construction with vertical wood planks, and numerous double-hung windows.’

The building has three floor levels that include the main floor, a rear second story addition and a basement area. (Lots of information here is from Historic Honokaʻa Project and NPS.)

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Hotel-Honokaa-Club-1950 Honokaa High School yearbook advertisement

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-1958 Honokaa High School yearbook advertisement

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-Victor Morita with hotel guest ca. 1940s

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-Alex, Robert, and Henry Morita standing in front of the Hotel Honokaa Club sign

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-group gathering

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-Victor Morita preparing food in the kitchen with unidentified waitress, ca. 1940s

Hotel-Honokaa-Club_front

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-Victor (left of center) and Tomiko (right of center) Morita’s wedding party. Mother Kane Morita is in white, ca. 1920s

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-room

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-rear

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-front

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-dining

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-bar

Hotel-Honokaa-Club

Hotel-Honokaa-Club room

hotel_honokaa_banner

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-Sanborn_Map

Honokaa-Club-Layout

Honokaa-Club-Layout-basement

Honokaa-Club-Layout-top floor

January 24, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Laupāhoehoe

The northeastern coast of the island of Hawaiʻi presents an almost continuous succession of valleys, with intervening uplands rising gently for a few miles, and then more abruptly toward the snows of Mauna Kea and the clouds.

The rains are abundant on that side of the island, and the fertile plateau, boldly fronting the sea with a line of cliffs from fifty to a hundred feet in height, is scored at intervals of one or two miles with deep and almost impassable gulches.

The streams reach the ocean either through rocky channels worn to the level of the waves, or in cascades leaping from the cliffs and streaking the coast from Hilo to Waipiʻo.

In the time of Līloa, and later, this plateau was thickly populated, and requiring no irrigation, was cultivated from the sea upward to the line of frost. A few kalo patches are still seen, and bananas grow, as of old, in secluded spots and along the banks of the ravines. (Kalākaua)

“Lapahoi (Laupāhoehoe – leaf of lava) is a small stony flat with a few huts and sweet potatoes and taro patches scattered over it. It lies at the extremity of a deep ravine, the declivities on either side nearly 500 feet in height and extending to the sea beach, terminating in a rocky precipice.”

“The coast all the way to Lapahoi was intersected by many deep ravines, many of which had large rivers forming beautiful waterfalls that fell over the outward cliffs into the ocean, the angry surf of which broke a long way up upon the rocks underneath.” (Macrae, 1825)

“The country, by which we sailed, was fertile, beautiful, and apparently populous. The numerous plantations on the eminences and sides of the deep ravines or valleys, by which it was intersected, with the streams meandering through them into the sea, presented altogether a most agreeable prospect.”

“The coast was bold, and the rocks evidently volcanic. We frequently saw the water gushing out of hollows in the face of the rocks, or running in cascades from the top to the bottom.”

“After sailing very pleasantly for several hours, we approached Laupāhoehoe: although we had come upwards of twenty miles, and had passed not less than fifty ravines or valleys, we had not seen a spot where we thought it would be possible to land without being swamped”.

“(A)lthough we knew we had arrived at the end of our voyage, we could discover no place by which it seemed safe to approach the shore, as the surf was beating violently, and the wind blowing directly towards the land.” (Ellis, 1823)

In January 1834, David Douglas (a fir tree was named after him) visited the island of Hawai‘i, traveled around the base of Mauna Kea – including the upper Laupāhoehoe forest zone – and ascended Mauna Kea; while on his second visit to the island, he died at a location near the mauka boundary of Laupāhoehoe and Humuʻula.

In 1859, Abel Harris and FB Swain entered into a partnership and secured a section of land on the Laupāhoehoe peninsula and lower plains; they ran a trading station and attempted to undertake several business ventures, including, collection of pulu (down) from hāpuʻu tree ferns, hunting bullocks in the upper forest lands, and cultivation of sugar cane on the lowlands.

The lowlands of the Laupāhoehoe region became the focus of sugar plantation efforts as early as the 1850s. But it was not until 1876, that a full-scale plantation was incorporated, and a mill established.

At the industry’s peak 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.

As elsewhere, sugar cultivation exploded on the Big Island. As a means to transport sugar and other goods, railroading was introduced to the Islands in 1879. All the sugar grown in East Hawaiʻi, in Puna and on the Hāmākua Coast, was transported by rail to Hilo Harbor, where it was loaded onto ships bound for the continent.

The rail line crossed over 12,000-feet in bridges, 211-water openings under the tracks, and individual steel spans up to 1,006-feet long and 230-feet in height.

Some of the most notable were those over Maulua and Honoliʻi gulches, the Wailuku River and Laupāhoehoe. Over 3,100 feet of tunnels were constructed, one of which, the Maulua Tunnel, was over half a mile in length.

While the main business of the railroad remained the transport of raw sugar and other products to and from the mills, it also provided passenger service.

Targeting tourists to augment local passenger and raw sugar transport, the Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway ran sightseeing specials under the name “Scenic Express.”

Not for the faint of heart, rail trips included a stop on the trestles, where passengers disembarked to admire the outstanding scenery.

But the end was near for the railway. Early in the morning of April 1, 1946, a massive tsunami struck Hawaiʻi. The railroad line between Hilo and Paʻauilo suffered massive damage; bridges collapsed, trestles tumbled and one engine was literally swept off the tracks.

At Laupāhoehoe Point, waves destroyed teachers’ residences and flooded school grounds, killing twenty-five people, including sixteen students and five teachers of Laupāhoehoe School.

(The 1946 tsunami killed 159-people and caused $26-million in property damage throughout the islands. To prevent such widespread loss of life and property, the territory-wide Tsunami Warning System was put in place in 1948 and successfully utilized for the 1952 and 1957 tsunamis.) (hawaii-edu)

At the time of the tsunami, plantations were already phasing out rail in favor of trucking cane from the field to the mill. It was inevitable that trucking would also replace rail as the primary means of transporting sugar to the harbor. The tsunami accelerated that transition.

A few remnants of the railway are still visible. In Laupāhoehoe, a concrete platform remains where Hula dancers once performed for tourists. And the Laupāhoehoe Train Museum is housed in the former home of Mr. Stanley, the superintendent of maintenance.

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