Ahupuaʻa were land divisions that served as a means of managing people and taking care of the people who support them, as well as an easy form of collection of tributes by the chiefs. Ultimately, this helped in preserving resources. A typical ahupuaʻa (what we generally refer to as watersheds, today) was a long strip […]
Kulaokahu‘a – The Plains
On January 9, 1847, the Polynesian reported there were 1,386 buildings in Honolulu, 1,337 of these were residences: 875 made of grass; 345 adobe; 49 coral; 49 wood and 29 stone/coral below, wood above. Washington Place was built that year by future-Queen Liliʻuokalani’s father-in-law. Excluding visiting sailors, foreigners made up only some 6 per cent […]
You Lived Downtown, Because You Worked Downtown
… then came the tram to Pacific Heights. The earliest residential subdivisions in the Islands appear to have been laid out by the government on the level areas between Thomas Square and Pawaʻa, initially under governmental auspices, during the 1880s. The area was known as Kulaokahu‘a (“the plain of the boundary”) and commonly referred to […]