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January 8, 2022 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Pearl City Tavern

On November 16, 1889, the Oahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L) began operating O‘ahu. OR&L wasn’t just about a railroad, it had ‘land’ components, as well. The railway owned 2,200-acres in fee simple in the peninsula.

First they laid-out and constructed the improvements, then invited the public on a free ride to see the new residential community.

It was Hawai‘i’s first planned suburban development and held a contest, through the newspaper, to name this new city. The winner selected was “Pearl City” (the public also named the main street, Lehua.)

As noted in Whitney’s 1890 Tourist Guide, “The new town of Pearl City, another offspring of our railroad enterprise, rests on one of the loveliest slopes of Pearl Harbor’s borders.”

“A handsome depot and several residences built in new styles of architecture present a decidedly attractive appearance. The town is bisected by a wide boulevard, from either side of which extend well graded avenues. A landscape gardener is engaged in beautifying the borders of the thoroughfares, and setting out trees of all the varieties that flourish in this generous climate.”

“Pearl City will afford pleasant homes for those who desire recreation after the day’s toils in Honolulu. (Whitney; Tourist Guide, 1890) The marketing went so well; ultimately, lots were auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Later, the Pearl City Tavern opened in 1939 under the ownership of George & Irene Fukuoka. Advertiser restaurant writer Francee King noted in an article in 1970, “George Fukuoka started a small eatery just across the street from where Pearl City Tavern now stands.”

“In two years it had burst its seams with customers, and he made the move to a larger place in the present location. It soon became evident that more expansion was necessary as customers passed the word that Pearl City Tavern was an excellent place to eat. And, so over the years it grew until it became the impressive double-dining room complex that we know as PCT.”

“George Fukuoka’s way has always been to provide superior foods and superior services for his patrons. Always he has searched for new and different dished to tempt the appetite.” (King Adv, Feb 15, 1970)

A Nippu Jiji article in 1942 noted, “One of rural Oahu’s favorite recreation spots, the Pearl City Tavern is celebrating its second anniversary this month. In the last two years it has grown from a lunch counter and fountain to a large cafe with a bar, and a ballroom that will accommodate 600 dancers.”

“It started with three employees and now has 40. A few months ago, the Pearl City Tavern contributed 11,000 to the army and navy relief funds. Red Cross and newspaper subscriptions for rural Oahu service men.

The tavern was home to a group of live monkeys, that amused and entertained bar & restaurant patrons from a habitat behind a glass window at the bar.

“Take time to visit the fascinating Monkey Bar. The ‘floor show’ they put on is amusing and delightful, a bonus pleasure at cocktail time. You are also invited to the beautiful Roof Garden, where bonsai trees of many shapes, sizes and varieties are on display” (King) (George Fukuoka was a noted bonsai collector.)

The Fukuokas were an enterprising couple who turned their tavern into a self-contained entertainment complex. Besides the famous monkeys who lived in a plexiglass cage behind the bar, there was dancing and musical entertainment, a separate Japanese restaurant featuring an organist, a souvenir shop that sold ceramic monkey mugs emblazoned with the tavern logo. (Hawaiian Time Machine)

The “Monkey Bar” at the PCT was a popular drinking spot for servicemen. “Fifty years ago, it was a roadside joint with screen windows and an 8- by 12-foot dance floor. Now, a modern bar and restaurant are decorated with hanging plants, Japanese paper screens and a coin-operated Karaoke machine with sing-along video lyrics.”

“Usually pilots had a favorite watering hole wherever they called home. Around Oahu it was at PCT. The bar was actually a pretty nice restaurant and seemed to grow larger all the time, probably from the revenue garnered from all of those pilots.” (Naval Aviator in Landers)

“Used to be the sailors threw beer at the monkeys and the monkeys responded by throwing s – – – back at the sailors,” said bartender Duane Sato, 32, a Pearl City native well-versed in monkey bar lore.

“There was another monkey that walked along the bar with a tin cup. If a customer didn’t put any money in the cup, the monkey was trained to spill the guy’s drink.”

Later, “The bar was approximately 40 feet long and behind it was a glassed enclosed cage full of monkeys, mostly long tailed spider monkeys. The monkeys would run, jump, swing, climb or pick fleas from each other. It was like being in a zoo, especially at night when the clientele began to get inebriated.” (Sailor)

For many of the Sailors, the main pursuit in the tavern was to agitate Marines (and vice versa), not monkeys. ”If you wanted to learn to fight, that was the place to do it.” (Sailor)

“We’d love to fistfight the Marines, and it was easy to instigate them. All you had to do was try to dance with their girlfriends. That guaranteed a brawl every time.” (Sailor, Daily News)

“Military Police duties were performed mostly on post, no patrols off post except during the first two days of each month during pay day, which was the first day of each month. There were occasional patrols off post when troops visited the beaches on weekends, and to the Pearl City Tavern in Pearl City”.

“The Pearl City Tavern, which we referred to as the Monkey Bar, was a popular GI hangout, and was the dividing line for the two MP Companies jurisdictions. There was considerable rivalry between the two MP Companies, and some animosity also.”

“On two or three occasions the MPs from Honolulu arrested our patrols in Pearl City for being out of their jurisdiction, and our MPs in turn arrested a couple of their patrols when the occasion arose. That’s what caused the friction between the two companies. (Army MP Tropic Lightning Museum))

“In my day, we were all over the legal limit before we arrived. If you’re going to drink in a bar filled with monkeys, you have to be loaded before you get there.” (Sailor, Daily News)

Pearl City Tavern closed in 1993 (and the building later razed to make way for a car dealership). In 2018, George and Irene Fukuoka were inducted (posthumously) into the Hawai‘i Restaurant Association Hall of Fame.

January 7, 2022 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Martial Law 1895

Following the overthrow of the constitutional monarchy of Queen Liliʻuokalani on January 17, 1893, the Committee of Safety established the Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi as a temporary government until an assumed annexation by the US.

The Provisional Government convened a constitutional convention and established the Republic of Hawaiʻi on July 4, 1894. The Republic continued to govern the Islands.

From January 6 to January 9, 1895, patriots of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and the forces that had overthrown the government were engaged in a war that consisted of three battles on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi.

This has frequently been referred to as the “Counter-revolution”. It has also been called the Second Wilcox Rebellion of 1895, the Revolution of 1895, the Hawaiian Counter-revolution of 1895, the 1895 Uprising in Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiian Civil War, the 1895 Uprising Against the Provisional Government or the Uprising of 1895.

In response, President Sanford B Dole, on January 7, 1895 proclaimed martial law:

“The right of the writ of habeas corpus is hereby suspended and Martial Law is instituted and established throughout the Island of Oahu, to continue until further notice, during which time, however, the Courts will continue in session and conduct ordinary business as usual, except as aforesaid.”

During the afternoon of January 7, several of the rebels were captured, and it was learned that the insurgents were under the command of Robert Wilcox and Samuel Nowlein, with Carl Widemann, WHC Greig and Louis Marshall as Lieutenants.

Wilcox had received military instruction in Italy during the days of King Kalākaua (he previously led a rebellion in 1887.) Nowlein served in the military under the Monarchy, and after the overthrow of 1893 had lived at Washington Place as a retainer of the ex-Queen.

Widemann was the son of a judge (who was one of Liliʻuokalani’s Commissioners to President Cleveland. Greig and Marshall were young clerks in business houses in Honolulu.

On January 14, Nowlein, Widemann, Greig and Marshall surrendered themselves to the authorities, and during the afternoon Robert Wilcox was captured in the outskirts of the city.

On the forenoon of January 16, Deputy Marshal Brown and Senior Captain Parker of the police force served a military warrant on the ex-Queen at her Washington Place residence.

President Dole, as Commander in Chief, ordered a Military Commission “to meet at Honolulu, Island of Oahu, on the 17th day of January, A. D. 1895, at to A. M., and there after from day to day for the trial of such prisoners as may be brought before it on the charges and specifications to be presented by the Judge Advocate.”

The trials were held in the Legislative Hall of the Executive building and were open to the general public, special accommodations also being made for the attendance of the diplomatic corps.

One of the first moves of the lawyer for the defense was to raise objection to the jurisdiction “That no military or other law exists in the Hawaiian Islands under which a Military Commission is authorized to try any person for a statutory crime.”

“That under the proclamation of martial law the general authority of the Courts of the Republic created by the Constitution continues, and they have authority to conduct all business which comes properly before them, and have the sole authority to try persons accused of offenses such as are specified in the charges before the Commission.”

The Judge-Advocate stated that martial law is a law of necessity, in which the question of necessity rests in the discretion of the Executive and nobody can call it in question. The right had been exercised; there was nothing more to say.

During its session of thirty-six days, 191-prisoners were brought before the Commission. The most prominent persons were ex-Queen Liliʻuokalani and Prince Kūhiō. Some were acquitted, others found guilty; by January 1, 1896, the last of the prisoners was released from prison, typically under conditional pardons.

The trial of the last case brought before the Commission ended March 1; however, the Commission did not adjourn until March 18, 1895 and the martial law was lifted.

This was not the first proclamation of martial law in the Islands. On January 17, 1893, martial law was declared by the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands. Later, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, martial law was in effect in the Islands from December 7, 1941 to October 24, 1944.) (Lots of information here is from Alexander and Farrington.)

January 6, 2022 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Owyhee

Some suggest the spelling was the way Captain James Cook spelled the Island chain he “discovered” in 1778, and the name of the island where he eventually died.

However, we need to remember that Cook first sighted Oʻahu on January 18, 1778. On February 2, 1778 his journal entry named the island group after his patron: “Of what number this newly-discovered Archipelago consists, must be left for future investigation. … I named the whole group the Sandwich Islands, in honour of the Earl of Sandwich.” (Cook’s Journal) (That name stuck for about 60-years, when the Hawaiian Islands replaced the Sandwich moniker.)

Likewise, in the dedication of his journals, the memorial (and in numerous references throughout) noted: “He raised himself, solely by his merit, from a very obscure birth, to the rank of Post-Captain in the royal navy, and was unfortunately killed by the savages of the of the island Owhyhee on the 14th of February, 1779; which island he had not long before discovered, when prosecuting his third voyage round the globe.”

When Captain Cook first visited the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaiian was a spoken language but not a written language. Historical accounts were passed down orally, through chants and songs. After western contact and attempts to write about Hawaiʻi, early writers tried to spell words based on the sound of the words they heard. People heard words differently, so it was not uncommon for words to be spelled differently, depending on what the writer heard.

So the origin of the specific spelling of this place(s) is not clear.

The discussion of this place relates to a river on the continent (and some places it passes that are similarly named.) There are many stories about other “Owyhee” continental place names; those are subjects of future stories – this one is about the Owyhee River. The word Owyhee is the older spelling of Hawaiʻi.

The USGS Geological Names Information Systems note an 1838 map of Oregon Territory prepared by Samuel Parker (not Hawaiʻi’s Samuel Parker) as the citation for the river’s name (by Board action of the Board of Geographic Names, the river received that “Official” name in 1959.)

The Owyhee River (a 280-mile tributary of the Snake River) has its source in northern Elko County, Nevada, flowing northward into southwestern Idaho through Owyhee County, and continuing into extreme southeastern Oregon in southern Malheur County.

So how did Hawaiʻi (Owyhee) make it to the Oregon Territory? And, why did a river receive that name?

To get there, we need to go back a bit … to 1811.

That year, the first two-dozen Kanakas (Hawaiians) were recruited to work the Pacific Northwest to support the expanding fur trading business (twelve as seamen and the remaining half to work at a proposed fur post.)

Thick, luxurious and water-repellent furs of sea mammals (from beavers, sea otters and fur seals) were highly valued in China as well as in Europe, where they were sewn into coats, hats and bed covers. Furs were mostly traded in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the US.

Trading ships plying between the Northwest, China and Europe would stop in Hawaiʻi to replenish their stores. Hawaiians had worked on many of the merchant ships. Most served as seamen or contract workers; others manned their outposts and built structures or farmed food for the ships’ crews and others.

As the fur trade expanded, nearly every post had had a contingent of Kanakas, who were noted for their reliability, cheerful dispositions and hard work.

This leads us to Donald Mackenzie, a brigade leader for the Canadian North West Company, who led yearlong trapping expeditions on the Snake and Columbia Rivers in the Oregon Territory.

About one-third of Mackenzie’s men on his 1818-1820 Snake River expedition were Kanakas. Mackenzie and his party wintered among the Snake Indians in 1819-1820.

Three of his Kanakas had been sent to another area to hunt beaver. When they did not return, Mackenzie sent out a search party which “found the place where they had been hunting, and where they had been murdered (believed to be by a band of Bannock Indians;) the skeleton of one of them was found, but nothing else.” (Duncan)

The river in the area was thereafter known as the Owyhee (in honor of the three Hawaiians.) (Some early references also note the name as “Sandwich Island River.”)

The earliest surviving record of the name is found on a map dating to 1825, drawn by William Kittson (who was previously with Donald Mackenzie in 1819-1820.)

Then, Peter Skene Ogden, who led subsequent Snake River expeditions for the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1825-1826, noted in his journal, “Saturday, (February) 18th (1826.) Severe cold. … when we reached Sandwich Island River, so called, owing to 2 of them murdered by Snake Indians in 1819. This is a fine large river…”

Ogden later notes, “Thursday, June 15th (1826.) All along our route this day the plains were covered with women digging roots; at least 10 bushels were traded by our party; the men (Indians) all gone to join the Fort Nez Perces Indians. Reached a fork of Owyhee River.”

The Owyhee begins at its headwaters in Nevada, flows through Idaho, and crosses into southeastern Oregon, where it eventually flows into the Snake River. From the Oregon/Idaho border to the Owyhee Reservoir (formed by the Owyhee Dam), the river flows through deeply incised canyons in a remote, arid and almost unpopulated area.

Other places near or on the river received the same “Owyhee” name.

Owyhee Dam, the tallest in the world when completed in 1932, is significant as a proving ground for engineering techniques used later in construction of Hoover Dam. As construction of the Owyhee began in 1928, plans were being laid for the much larger Hoover Dam on the Colorado River; it was Hoover’s testing ground. (NPS)

The Bureau of Reclamation’s Owyhee irrigation project is the largest in Oregon, with surrounding farmland used for a combination of livestock grazing and specialty crops such as potatoes, sugar beets, onions, and alfalfa seed. (In 1984, a hydroelectric powerhouse was built just downstream from the dam.)

The first known recreation use of the river occurred in 1951, when commercial outfitter Prince Helfrich floated from Three Forks to Rome utilizing surplus World War II rubber assault rafts. Boating use remained extremely light through the 1950s and 60s.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began recording recreation use in 1974, when 482 persons floated the river. By 1980, 2,000 boaters were utilizing the Owyhee and popular campsites were beginning to show the effect of recreational use. (Meyer)

In 1970 the state of Oregon designated the Owyhee River as a State Scenic Waterway. On October 19, 1984, President Reagan signed Public Law 98-494, designating 120 miles of the Owyhee River from the Oregon-Idaho boundary to the Owyhee Reservoir, excluding the Rome Valley from China Gulch to Crooked Creek, as a “Wild River” to be included in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

Oh, back to the fur trappers … they didn’t last long. It was the discovery of gold that brought many more people to the Owyhee. As prospectors fanned out throughout the state they eventually found their way into the Owyhee Mountain; a group discovered gold there in 1863.

January 5, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Snow Queen

“The Hawaii Visitors Bureau has sent out an SOS for a fur parka and fur mittens. Seems the Waikiki Lions are flying a plane load of snow to Waikiki beach Saturday afternoon from Mauna Loa to stage their annual snowball fight between bathing beauties.”

“The HVB wants to put Hawaii’s Snow Queen, Illeana Satterlee, in a park and mittens to use in National Publicity.” (Honolulu Advertiser, March 25, 1953)

“A dimpled, dark eyed Illeana Alaumoe Satterlee will reign as Hawaii’s 1953 snow queen this Saturday at the Waikiki Beach winter carnival sponsored by the Lions Clubs.”

“The 19 year old University of Hawaii sophomore was crowned yesterday by former Governor Stainback at a Honolulu Lions Club luncheon.”

“Judges included Mr Stainback and Senators Kazuhisa Abe, Tom T Okino, William J Nobriga, Wendell F Crockett and Herbert KH Lee.”

“The judges said politics did not enter into the task of choosing a queen from a field of 14 University of Hawaii coeds.”

“The named as her attendants Katherine Tomoko Sugiyama of Kohala, Hawaii, and Barbara Joan Friedlander of Kauai.”

“Miss Satterlee is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Julian A Satterlee of 612 Kaulani Way, Kailua. She is a graduate of Kamehameha School for Girls and is a sophomore university student majoring in psychology.”

“Lions will square off in front of the Moana Hotel for a snow fight using snow flown in from Mauna Kea. And Miss Satterlee and her attendants will add beauty to the event.” (Star-bulletin, March 25, 1953)

Snow was “assembled in piles from the summit slopes of 13,680-foot Mauna Loa by workers from Kulani prison farm and Mauna Loa boys school through cooperation of Charles Smith, farm superintendent, and Ishmael Manus, school superintendent.”

“Approximately 27 cubic feet of snow will be packed in six ice cream shipping jackets, This will be in cold storage over night, and early Saturday morning will be dispatched by local Lions via the first Hawaiian Airlines plane to Honolulu. (Hawaii Tribune Herald, March 27, 1953)

It seems the Hawaii Snow Queen is not the first such queen to Waikiki. “From the snowbanks and wintry fields of Minnesota to the coral sands of Waikiki, by plane, will be the experience soon of a lucky young woman from the middle northwest.”

“She’ll change from a fur coat huddle at St Paul to basking on the beach or riding through tropic jungles.”

“Beverly Prazak was chosen Snow Queen of the 1952 St Paul’s Winter Carnival. She will meet descendants of real kings and queens of Hawaii and attend a luau.”

“The Queen of Snows will have a weeks whirl of excitement in St Paul and Minneapolis and elsewhere before boarding a plane for Hawaii.” (Star-bulletin, December 24, 1951)

January 4, 2022 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Dealing With The Changes In The Early-1800s

In researching and preparing these posts on Hawai‘i, I have had growing appreciation for the way Hawai‘i handled the diversity, complexity and profound nature of the changes it was going through in the early to mid-1800s.

As you can see, here, from the end of the 1790s to the middle of the 1800s the legal, social, religious and economic structures of the pre-existing society are upended and completely changed.

Here are just a few of the things going on around the first-half of that century:

1795 – Kamehameha I invades and conquers O‘ahu at the Battle of Nu‘uanu, uniting the eastern islands under single rule

1805 – Sandalwood trade begins, starting the transition from a subsistence-based society to a barter, trade and monetary system (over the next 20-years the Islands’ Sandalwood forests are decimated)

1810 – Kamehameha and Kaumuali‘i come to an agreement and the islands are unified under single rule for the first time

1819 – King Kamehameha I dies, the role of King is passed to his eldest son, Liholiho

1819 – King Kamehameha II ends the kapu system, ending 500-years of religious, political and social structure

1820 – New England missionaries arrive to spread the gospel and convert the islanders to Christianity

1820 – As the Sandalwood trade is diminishing, the islands start to serve as a central Pacific provisioning site for whaling ships (at its zenith in the 1840s, over 85% of the American whaling fleet was in the Pacific)

1824 – Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and his Queen Kamāmalu contract measles and die in London; Kauikeaouli, his younger brother and son of Kamehameha I, becomes King.

1835 – The first commercially-viable Sugar Plantation starts at Kōloa, Kaua‘i

1839 – Chief’s Children’s School (later renamed Royal School) was created by King Kamehameha III who hired Amos and Juliette Cooke to run the school and teach the next generation of Hawaiian royalty to become rulers.

1840 – The first Constitution is passed in the Hawai‘i legislature

1848 – The Great Māhele dismantles the traditional system of land tenure and instituted a system of private property ownership

1850 – The Kuleana Act of 1850 was passed, permitting land ownership by commoners who occupied and improved any portion of the lands controlled by the Ali‘i and Konohiki

Between 1800 and 1850, the language changed, the religion changed, the apparel changed, the housing changed, where and how people lived and worked changed …

Life became completely different – in a single generation.

Now put these into perspective on how some of these changes greatly affected the Hawaiian people:

• The health of many Hawaiians was weakened by exposure to new diseases, common cold, flu, measles, mumps, smallpox and venereal diseases

• As more ships came in, many of those who came to Hawaiʻi chose to stay and settle

• Many Hawaiians boarded these passing ships for either employment or to move to other areas (primarily, the North American continent)

• Hawaiʻi changed from a land of all Hawaiians to a place of mixed cultures, languages and races

• Many new plants and animals were brought to the islands, both on purpose and by accident (many turned out to be invasive to the native species)

• New products by foreign ships were traded, including firearms, beads, western dress and fabric, crystal lamps, mirrors, nails and metal goods, silk and liquor

• The economy and everyday life was changing from a subsistence way of life to a commodity-based economy that started with barter and trade, that eventually changed to a monetary system

• There was growth of business centers, where people ended up living closer to one another, typically surrounding the best seaports for western ships (small towns soon grew into large cities)

All of this set the foundation for the second half of the century, whose socio-economic status centered on the plantation industries of sugar and pineapple.

This changed the face of Hawai‘i forever, launching an entire economy, lifestyle and practice of monocropping that lasted for well over a century. With it came even greater foreign waves of workforce immigration.

If you look at the records, you’ll see that many of these changes were initiated, supported and promoted by the Aliʻi. They sought and acquired western goods; this caused many of the changes noted here.

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