Peter T Young

October 9, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kalaeloa

Kalaeloa is literally translated as, “the distant point or the long cape.” It is situated on the ʻEwa Plain in the ahupuaʻa of Honouliuli.

Kalaeloa region was a very good place for fishing and shoreline collecting; the koʻa (fishing ground) outside of Kalaeloa is called Hani-o. (Beckwith)

A nearby heiau on Puʻu o Kapolei (hill of beloved Kapo (sister of Pele)) marked the movements of the sun and served as an astronomical marker to designate the seasons.

“(T)he people of Oʻahu reckoned from the setting of the sun at Puu-o-Kapolei, until it set in the hollow of Mahinaona, it was called Kau. And from Puu-o-Kapolei, the sun moved south (noting winter).” (Polynesian Voyaging Society)

The area between Puʻu o Kapolei and Kalaeloa is known as Kaupeʻa (what we generally refer to as the ʻEwa Plain.) Kaupeʻa is said to be the realm of the ao kuewa or ao ‘auwana (the homeless or wandering souls). Kaupeʻa was the wandering place of those who died having no rightful place to go. (Maly)

In 1793, Captain George Vancouver described this area as desolate and barren: “From the commencement of the high land to the westward of Opooroah (Puʻuloa – Pearl Harbor) was … one barren rocky waste, nearly destitute of verdure, cultivation or inhabitants, with little variation all to the west point of the island. …”

In 1839, Missionary EO Hall described the area between Pearl Harbor and Kalaeloa as follows: “Passing all the villages (after leaving the Pearl River) at one or two of which we stopped, we crossed the barren desolate plain”. (Robicheaux) In the 1880s, these lands were being turned over to cattle grazing and continued through the early-1900s.

Kalaeloa was first renamed on June 5, 1786 by British Captain Nathanial Portlock – he named the cape Point Banks, honoring his patron Sir Joseph Banks. (Banks was the naturalist on Captain Cook’s first voyage into the Pacific.)

However, the cape was shortly thereafter given a new name, as a result of an unfortunate grounding of the ‘Arthur’ at that point on October 31, 1796; the ship was captained by Henry Barber.

“Unscrupulous, tyrannical, opportunistic, over-reaching and a trifle-fond of the bottle” is a brief description by one of Captain Barber. (Scott)

On a voyage to China, Barber called at Honolulu for supplies. He left Honolulu, heading for Kauaʻi to get a supply of yams, at about 6 pm, October 31. At 8:10 pm Barber’s ship struck a coral shoal.

After scraping bottom, Barber and his crew of twenty-two, manned the life-boats and reached shore through the pounding surf (six drowned in the process.) The Arthur was driven on the reef and broke up.

The next morning when Barber returned to the wrecked Arthur he found there John Young, who happened to be on Oʻahu at the time and, learning of the disaster, hurried to the scene to take charge of the efforts to salvage the cargo. (Howay)

Barber was a successful and influential trader across the Pacific. “If America was the main supplier of the Australian market in the years immediately succeeding the settlement of Port Jackson (Sydney), India was a close contender. Captain Henry Barber, Master of the 85-ton snow Arthur, operated from both centres …” (Journal of the Polynesian Society) He included China in his trade loop.

“(T)here were but 500 otter skins on board when she was cast away, which he carried with him to Canton, 500 otter skins in those days were worth some $20 to $40,000” (Polynesian, February 8, 1851) The greater part of the skins and ships stores were saved.

Several years later, on his way to China, Barber passed through Hawaiʻi again (December 17, 1802.) He learned that King Kamehameha had retrieved ten guns off the wreck of the Arthur and installed them for the defense of a newly built fort in Lāhainā, Maui.

Barber claimed the guns were his, but Kamehameha refused, claiming possession was nine-tenths of the law. To top it off, since Barber was in Hawaiʻi to reprovision, Kamehameha made Barber pay for his supplies with gunpowder.

Since the grounding of the Arthur, the point has been associated with the captain of the ill-fated ship. In 1968, the US Board of Geographic Names dropped the apostrophe, changing the name from Barber’s Point to Barbers Point.

This wasn’t the only wreck, here. In looking for a lighthouse here in 1880, Hawaiian government surveyor William Alexander noted, “I examined the coast for some miles in the neighborhood of Barber’s Point, selected a site for a light house and marked the spot by a pile of stones and a staff with a red and white flag. I also fixed the position … where there are several pieces of … the French whaleship Marquis de Turenne, which was wrecked about a mile off the point in 1855.” (Lighthouse Friends)

“A shoal with only 6 to 10 feet of water on it is said to extend 2 to 3 miles south by west from the point, and it should be sounded. In fact it is a question whether the light house might not be placed on a shallow spot or “okohola” whale’s back, as the natives call it, a mile or more offshore.” (Alexander, Lighthouse Friends)

The first Barbers Point lighthouse tower was “constructed of coral (another source noted lava) in the days of King Kalākaua in 1888”. It stood 42 feet.

The current 72-foot tower was built in 1933. The older tower was intentionally toppled on 29 December 1933, the same day the new tower was lit. The light was automated in 1964.

Aviation facilities were also constructed nearby. Starting in 1925, a mooring mast for lighter-than-air dirigibles was erected. The original field was called Navy Mooring Mast Field because the Navy had originally planned to have the ‘Akron’ based there when in Hawaiʻi. But the ‘Akron’ crashed, ending the project. The mooring mast was taken down in 1932 and planning moved forward for other aviation facilities.

Around 1940, two air stations were built at Kaupeʻa (the ʻEwa Plain the Naval Air Station Barber’s Point, the larger and the Marine Corps Air Station, ʻEwa, the smaller.) Following the outbreak of World War II, facilities were expanded to sustain four carrier groups.

Ewa was officially closed on June 18, 1952 and its property assumed by Naval Air Station Barbers Point. (The thirty-two revetments on the property, originally designed to shield aircraft from bomb blasts, have served as stables since the 1950s and provide a home for approximately 50 horses.)

Barbers Point was decommissioned by the Navy in 1998 and turned over to the State of Hawaiʻi for use as Kalaeloa Airport and is used by the US Coast Guard, Hawaii Community College Flight Program, Hawaiʻi National Guard and general aviation, as well as an alternate landing site for Honolulu International Airport.

October 8, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

John Adams Cummins

John Adams Kuakini Cummins was born March 17, 1835 in Honolulu. He was a namesake of island governor John Adams Kuakini (1789–1844), who had taken the name of John Quincy Adams when Americans first settled on the islands in the 1820s.

His father was Thomas Jefferson Cummins (1802–1885) who was born in Lincoln, England, raised in Massachusetts and came to the Hawaiian Islands in 1828. His mother was High Chiefess Kaumakaokane Papaliʻaiʻaina (1810–1849) who was a distant relative of the royal family of Hawaiʻi.

In the 1840s, his father first developed a cattle ranch and horse ranch. Facing diminishing returns in the cattle market, in the 1880s, John began to grow sugar cane in place of cattle. This plantation was known as the Waimanalo Sugar Company.

He married Rebecca Kahalewai (1830–1902) in 1861, also considered a high chiefess, and had five children with her, four daughters and one son.

Cummins was elected to the House of Representatives in the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1874. King Kalākaua appointed him to the Privy Council on June 18, 1874 shortly after Kalākaua came to the throne.

Even though Cummins voted against former Queen Emma in the election, she asked him to manage a trek for her around the islands in November 1875.

He had staged a similar grand tour the year before for Kalākaua. Emma was not disappointed.

Although many ancient Hawaiian customs had faded (due to influence of conservative Christian missionaries, for example), Cummins staged great revivals of ceremonies such as traditional hula performance.

In the legislature he advocated for the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 with the United States, which helped increase profits in the sugar industry, and his fortunes grew.

The sugar industry became a huge success and gave way to other innovations in the area. For instance, the use of railway tracks and locomotive were due to the boom of the sugar business.

Cummins left the sugar business to William G Irwin, agent of Claus Spreckles, and developed a commercial building called the Cummins Block at Fort and Merchant streets in Downtown Honolulu.

In 1889, he represented Hawaiʻi at the Paris exposition known as Exposition Universelle. On June 17, 1890 Cummins became Minister of Foreign Affairs in Kalākaua’s cabinet and thus was in the House of Nobles of the legislature for the 1890 session.

When Kalākaua died and Queen Liliʻuokalani came to the throne in early 1891, she replaced all her ministers. Cummins resigned February 25, 1891. He was replaced by Samuel Parker who was another part-Hawaiian.

Cummins was elected to the 1892 session of the House of Nobles, on the Hawaiian National Reform Party ticket. He also organized a group called the Native Sons of Hawaii which supported the monarchy.

After the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in early 1893, Liliʻuokalani asked Cummins to travel to the continent to lobby for its help in restoration of the monarchy.

The task, which included Parker and Hermann A Widemann, ended in failure. However, on the voyage to the west coast, William T Seward, a former Major in the American Civil War who worked for Cummins and lived in one of his homes, smuggled guns and ammunition for the failed 1895 counter-revolution.

Thomas Beresford Walker, Cummins’ son-in-law (married to his eldest daughter Matilda,) was also implicated in the plot. Cummins was arrested, charged with treason and convicted. He was sentenced to prison, but released after paying a fine and agreeing to testify against the ones actively involved in the arms trading.

He died on March 21, 1913 from influenza after a series of strokes and was buried in Oʻahu Cemetery. Well liked, even his political opponents called him “the playmate of princes and the companion and entertainer of kings”. The territorial legislature had tried several times to refund his fine, but it was never approved by the governor.

His funeral was a mix of mostly traditional symbols of the Hawaiian religion, with a Christian service in the Hawaiian language, attended by both royalists and planners of the overthrow.

Cummin’s great-grandson (through his daughter Jane Piikea Merseberg) was Mayor Neal Blaisdell.

October 7, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Tea

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” (Henry James)

According to legend, in 2737 BC, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while his servant boiled drinking water, when some leaves from the tree blew into the water. Shen Nung, a renowned herbalist, decided to try the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The tree was a Camellia sinensis, and the resulting drink was what we now call tea.

Containers for tea have been found in tombs dating from the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) but it was under the Tang dynasty (618-906 AD), that tea became firmly established as the national drink of China.

It became such a favorite that during the late eighth century a writer called Lu Yu wrote the first book entirely about tea, the Ch’a Ching, or Tea Classic. It was shortly after this that tea was first introduced to Japan, by Japanese Buddhist monks who had travelled to China to study.

Tea drinking has become a vital part of Japanese culture, as seen in the development of the Tea Ceremony, which may be rooted in the rituals described in the Ch’a Ching. (UK Tea)

The world began to learn of China’s tea secret in the early 1600s, when Dutch traders started bringing it to Europe in large quantities. With regular shipment to parts of Europe by 1610, tea first arrived in Britain in the 1650s, when it was served as a novelty in London’s coffee houses.

Back then, tea was a rare drink that very few consumed. The famous diarist Samuel Pepys wrote about his first tea experience, and the first written reference to tea drinking in England.

On September 25, 1660, Pepys was called to the meeting to discuss peace with Spain; he noted, “And afterwards I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I had never drank before, and went away”. (BBC)

Tea was slow to catch on in England.

However, it may have been the wife of King Charles II, two years later, who popularized tea in the UK. In 1662, Charles II, the newly restored monarch, married Catherine of Braganza, the daughter of Portugal’s King John IV. She became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Upon arriving in Portsmouth on May 14, 1662 ahead of her marriage to the king, Catherine asked for a cup of tea. Tea had arrived by this point, but it was rare for anyone to drink it, so none was available – instead, she was offered a small ale. She was already a regular tea drinker, as the drink was already a popular beverage among the aristocracy of Portugal.

The king and queen got married on May 14, and Portugal provided several ships of luxury items as it had been agreed. One of those items included a chest of tea, the favorite drink of the Portuguese Court.

Catherine popularized the drink among British nobility, and subsequently to the wealthier members of society. The invasion of tea in the country had well and truly started. (BBC)

OK; so, how does this relate to Hawai‘i?

Beginning well before 1600, the North American fur trade was the earliest global economic enterprise. Europeans and, later, Canadians and Americans, hunted and trapped furs; but success mandated that traders cultivate and maintain dense trade and alliance networks with Native nations.

Within ten years after Captain Cook’s 1778 contact with Hawai‘i, the islands became a favorite port of call in the trade with China. The fur traders and merchant ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water.

The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska. The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for silks, porcelain, other Chinese goods … and Tea, which were then sold in Europe and the US.

The East India Company was perhaps the most powerful commercial organization that the world has ever seen. In its heyday it not only had a monopoly on British trade with India and the Far East, but it was also responsible for the government of much of the vast Indian sub-continent.

Both of these factors mean that the East India Company (or, to call it by its proper name, the British East India Company) was crucial to the history of the tea trade. (UK Tea)

After acquiring the “Louisiana Purchase” in 1803, under the directive of President Thomas Jefferson, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the “Corps of Discovery Expedition” (1804–1806), was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific coast undertaken by the United States.

Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was a fur trading company that started in Canada in 1670; its first century of operation found HBC firmly focused in a few forts and posts around the shores of James and Hudson Bays, Central Canada.

Fast forward 150-years and in 1821, HBC merged with North West Company, its competitor; the resulting enterprise now spanned the continent – all the way to the Pacific Northwest (modern-day Oregon, Washington and British Columbia) and the North (Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.)

Fur traders working for the HBC traveled an area of more than 700,000 square miles that stretched from Russian Alaska to Mexican California and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

Ships sailed from London around Cape Horn around South America and then to forts and posts along the Pacific Coast via the Hawaiian Islands. Trappers crossing overland faced a journey of 2,000 miles that took three months.

Traders, in order to obtain the wherewithal to purchase teas and silks at Canton, spent 18-months or more of each China voyage collecting a cargo of sea-otter skins, highly esteemed by the Chinese.

Needing supplies in their journey, the traders soon realized they could economically barter for provisions in Hawai‘i; for instance any type of iron, a common nail, chisel or knife, could fetch far more fresh fruit meat and water than a large sum of money would in other ports.

A triangular trade network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China and the Hawaiian Islands to Britain and the United States (especially New England).

Practically every vessel that visited the North Pacific in the closing years of the 18th century stopped at Hawai‘i to replenish supplies, refreshment and recreation.

Fur trading on the coast remained profitable from the 1780s into the 1820s, but the successful trade in furs depended entirely on the locale. Some parts of the coast, such as Nootka Sound and Clayoquot Sound, witnessed a complete collapse of the sea otter population after only a decade of intense hunting. (Igler)

October 6, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kakaʻako Pumping Station

The word “Sewer” is derived from the term “seaward” in Old English, as in ditches and ravines slightly sloped to run waste water from land to sea.

From an 1857 story in the Commercial Pacific Advertiser it appears that the first sewer facility to be constructed on Oʻahu was a storm drain located at Queen Street at the foot of Kaʻahumanu Street opposite Pier 11. (ASCE)

Despite three outbreaks of smallpox, a typhus epidemic and two cholera epidemics between 1853 and 1895, no other serious actions were taken to improve conditions.

Honolulu was a growing city and needed a better way of disposing its wastewater.

At that time, the city had grown to approximately 30,000-people, and it was estimated that about 1.8-million gallons of sewage was being disposed of in the City septic systems daily. This was much more than septic tank excavators could keep up with – which caused sanitation and odor concerns.

In 1897, Rudolph Hering, a New York Sanitary Engineer, was hired to prepare specifications for a Honolulu sewerage system, pumping station and ocean outfall (Hering had previously designed the New York and other large city sewage systems.)

Hering recommended a “separate system” whereby separate networks of conduits would carry sewage and storm waters, a system still used today in Honolulu.

Work on the system began in 1899 and sewer lines were laid out in a gravity flow pattern in a rectangular fashion and ran along Alapaʻi, River and South Streets, past Thomas Square, and ended in the Punahou area.

The system was extended to the remaining portion of what was then considered to be “town,” between Liliha on the ʻEwa side, Artesian Street, beyond Punahou to Judd Street, and including the Kewalo District.

The expansion was later delayed, due to a lack of funding. Much of the extension work thereafter was performed by property owners who were furnished piping and sewer components by the government.

The collection lines terminated at a main reservoir (the underground reservoir was dubbed the Hering Reservoir) at the low point at the intersection of Keawe Street and Ala Moana Boulevard in Kakaʻako. (Darnell) The sewage would then be pumped out to sea.

In addition, OG Traphagen (designer of the Moana Hotel) was hired to design the steam-powered sewer pumping station at this low spot.

The cost was tremendous for the construction of the lines, and construction was stopped several times due to lack of funding. The sewer outfall to the ocean was built in 1899. The outfall ran some 3,800-feet out to sea at a depth of 40-feet of water, rather than farther out to a 100-foot depth (again, due to funding constraints.) (Darnell)

In 1900, the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was constructed; with features such as large arched windows, exterior walls of local lava rock, roofs of green tile and a smokestack 76-feet tall.

The architectural style is Industrial Romanesque with the walls constructed of locally-cut bluestone and concrete with plaster finished interior walls.

The first sewer system connections (to the Department of Health building on Punchbowl and Queen Streets, and to the Post Office building on Bethel and Merchant) were completed in 1900. This was followed by the slow conversion of other properties from cesspools to sewers.

Two additions were built to support the Pumping Station facility. In 1925, an additional “Pump” building of brick to house a high-speed, electric powered pump was added and the original plant was turned into a machine shop, storeroom and office. In 1939 a second “New” Pump House was constructed on the southwestern side of the existing structures.

The use of the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was abandoned by the City and County of Honolulu when it built a new pumping station on the southwest portion of the block, adjacent to the Historic Ala Moana Pumping Station in 1955.

Now under the jurisdiction of the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority, it is restored by the nonprofit Hawaiʻi Architectural Foundation.

Today, the interior of the 1900 Pumping Station does not contain any historic equipment or utilities. (Lots of information here from HCDA, HHF, ASCE and Darnell.)

October 5, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaiian Volcano Research Association

“Keep and publish careful records, invite the whole world of science to co-operate, and interest the business man.” (Jaggar, 1913)

In contemplating the formation of a volcano observatory in Hawai‘i, Thomas Jaggar enlisted support from the Chamber of Commerce and the leading citizens of Honolulu.

In 1909, subscriptions were started by personal interview through the agency of Mr. Thurston and volunteer solicitors, after a lecture on volcanoes by Professor Jaggar, delivered at the University Club of Honolulu. A generous response came from a number of organizations and individuals.

The Chamber of Commerce appointed a committee to seek subscriptions in June, 1909. These were: Charles M. Cooke, Ltd., C. H. Cooke, Acting Director; Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co., Ltd., James A. Kennedy, General Manager; Mr. W. G. Irwin; Kilauea Volcano House, Ltd., E. W. Campbell, Treasurer; Hilo Rail Road Co., Lorrin A. Thurston, General Manager; Hawaiian Promotion Committee; Mr. George Wilcox; Mr. Aug. Knudsen and the Bishop Museum.

The founding of the Volcano Observatory and the formation of the group of subscribers called the “Research Association,” were themselves evolved productions of the inspiring work of early investigators, as well as of the natural intellectual stimulus created in man by the unexplained Kilauea lake of boiling nebulous flux.

October 5, 1911, at a well-attended meeting in the University Club, Honolulu, an informal organization of the Research Association was adopted and placed in the hands of a committee consisting of L. A. Thurston, chairman; A. F. Judd, representing the trustees of the Bishop Museum; President J. W. Gilmore, representing the College of Hawaii; C. H. Cooke, treasurer of the association; J. A. Kennedy.

Mr. Thurston at this meeting pointed out that there should be no break in the collection of records at Kilauea so well started by Mr. Perret, and suggested that a committee of five be appointed with power to act, to draw up a form of organization and to solicit subscriptions to help cover daily operations.

The persons who signed the subscription list of 1909 had been interviewed and had mostly expressed themselves as willing to renew their subscriptions. He reviewed the history of the observatory movement and then suggested that a voluntary, unincorporated, local organization be formed, to secure funds to carry on volcanic research; such funds to be administered and expended by an unpaid executive committee of five to be annually elected by the association.

The meeting of October, 1911 put the money-raising in the hands of the committee of five, and the estate of CM Cooke, Ltd. became guarantor of a fund of $5,000 annually, the actual subscriptions in Hawaii at first amounting to some three-quarters of that sum.

Mr. Jaggar by personal interviews raised $2,800 additional in 1912, assisted by a new subscription blank approved July 10, 1912, by the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce. In January of that year he had raised $1,785 in Hilo through the energetic assistance of Mr. Demosthenes Lycurgus, with the approval of the Hilo Board of Trade, this money being for the Observatory building.

A few small gifts have been made for special purposes such as the motorcar and certain specimens destined for the Bishop Museum.

The subscriptions are partly for five years, but many are renewable from year to year. Their motto was Ne plus haustae aut obrutae urbes (No more shall the cities be destroyed).

President Gilmore mentioned the many unsolved problems at the volcanoes and the necessity for continuous and concerted effort to collect data. He pointed out the extensive instrumental equipment which would be necessary and agreed for the College of Hawaii to give such assistance as its rules would permit.

Mr. Judd expressed great interest on the part of the Bishop Museum and undertook to investigate thoroughly what funds could be used to this end under the trust deed of that Institution.

Mr. C. H. Cooke, president of the Bank of Hawaii, deplored the multiplicity of organizations in Honolulu and expressed the belief that it would be to the welfare of all concerned if the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) would take the scientific responsibility of the work.

Governor Frear cited two main propositions as involved in the plan of work of the proposed Volcano Research Association, one concerning the scientific value of the work and the other the advertising of the Islands to the world.

He did not know whether the government could assist but it might profitably be brought before the legislature. He thought the project would be heartily endorsed by the Hawaiian members.

Mr. T. Clive Davies expressed the hope that the scientific motive would greatly dominate the publicity idea as he feared the “blighting hand of commercialism” would seriously interfere with good research.

The net result of this meeting was to establish an association for the private subscription of money to volcano research. Through this, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory was formed.

According to its constitution, the name of this Association shall be the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association. The objects of this Association shall be:

To encourage and promote investigation of and research concerning volcanoes and volcanic phenomena, and all matters connected therewith or incidental thereto;
To establish and maintain an observatory at the Volcano of Kilauea, with subordinate stations at other points, from which investigation and research may be conducted, and at which records may be made and kept for the information of all, subject to the rules of the Association;
To invite scientific institutions and observers to make use of the buildings, apparatus and facilities of the Association, subject to the rules of the Association, and, so far as possible, to assist such institutions and observers in carrying on their work;
To promote the publication and dissemination of knowledge concerning volcanology and allied subjects, and to accumulate literature, photographs, models, maps and specimens, relating thereto, for the information of all, subject to the rules of the Association.

Membership was open to Any person, corporation, association or institution signing an application blank, whose name may be approved by the Board of Directors and who shall pay the dues prescribed by the Constitution, shall thereby become a member of the Association. (The membership dues shall be $5.00 per annum, payable annually in advance.)

Those who contribute to the support of the Association other than or in addition to the membership dues, shall be known as ”Patrons” of the Association.

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO), in operation from July 1, 1912, under the direction of the Department of Geology of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in part, received initial funding from trustees of the Estates of Edward and Caroline Whitney.

The Whitney Fund provided $25,000 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where the principal and interest of the fund was for the conduct of research or teaching in geophysics.

MIT cooperated with the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association by becoming its largest subscriber for the five years, through the income of the Whitney fund and other payments. The Research Association’s funding support continued for several decades.

By December 1915, with Jaggar having worked in Hawai‘i for three years, the Research Association and MIT sent him to Washington DC to appeal to Congress to take over HVO as a government institution. In addition, the governor of Hawai‘i and the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce asked him to continue to push for the establishment of a national park. (Moniz Namakura)

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has operated HVO continuously since 1947. Before then, HVO was under the administration of various Federal agencies – the US Weather Bureau, at the time part of the Department of Agriculture, from 1919 to 1924; the USGS, which first managed HVO from 1924 to 1935; and the National Park Service from 1935 to 1947.

It currently operates under the direction of the USGS Volcano Science Center, which now supports five volcano observatories covering six US areas – Hawaiʻi (HVO), Alaska and the Northern Mariana Islands (Alaska Volcano Observatory), Washington and Oregon (Cascades Volcano Observatory), California (California Volcano Observatory), and the Yellowstone region (Yellowstone Volcano Observatory). (Information here is from various documents of USGS, HVO and NPS.)