Economy | Page 119 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 15, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

At The End Of The Line

Repeatedly evidenced in the early years of rail across the continent, railroads looked to expand their passenger business by operating hotels at the ends of the lines.

Once a railroad was being built to a new location, the land speculators would prepare for cashing in on their investment. A hotel would typically be in place by the time the railroad service began.

Prospective buyers needed to have a place to stay, so they could become enamored of the scenery and have time to be enticed into buying a piece of property.

Likewise, an ocean liner, while it served as a moving hotel, needed to make sure people had places to stay where the cruise ships stopped.

Simply look at the early history of trains and ships, the pattern is apparent. Several in Hawai‘i followed this example in the planning of their transportation systems.

Here’s a summary of a few hotels and attractions associated with Hawaiʻi’s transportation providers:

OR&L – Haleiwa Hotel
Dillingham’s Haleiwa Hotel was conceived as part of a larger concept. O‘ahu Railway & Land Company was built with the primary purpose of transporting sugar from western Honolulu and the North Shore to Honolulu Harbor.

Dillingham hoped to capitalize on his investment (and expand upon the diversity of users on his trains) by encouraging passenger travel as well; his new hotel was a means to this end. It thrived.

Matson – Moana Hotel
The Moana officially opened on March 11, 1901. Its first guests were a group of Shriners, who paid $1.50 per night for their rooms. Matson Navigation Company bought the property in 1932; they needed land-based accommodations equally lavish to house their cruisers to Hawaiʻi.

Over the course of Matson’s ownership of the Moana, it grew along with the popularity of Hawaiian tourism. Two floors were added in 1928 along with Italian Renaissance-styled concrete wings on each side of the hotel, creating its H shape seen today.

In 1952, a new hotel was built adjacent to the Moana called the Surfrider Hotel (on the east side of the Moana.) In the late-1960s (after the new Sheraton Surfrider Hotel was built on the west side of the Moana,) the old Surfrider building was made into a wing of the Moana Hotel.)

Matson – Royal Hawaiian Hotel
With the success of the early efforts by Matson Navigation Company to provide steamer travel to America’s wealthiest families en route to Hawaiʻi, Captain William Matson proposed the development of a hotel in Honolulu for his passengers.

This was in hope of profiting from what Matson believed could be the most lucrative endeavor his company could enter into. The Royal Hawaiian (Pink Palace of the Pacific) opened its doors to guests on February 1, 1927 with a black tie gala attended by over 1,200 guests. The hotel quickly became an icon of Hawaiʻi’s glory days.

Matson – Princess Kaʻiulani
After the war, tourism to Hawaiʻi expanded in the mid-1950s. To capitalize on this increasing boom in travel and trade, Matson constructed its third hotel, the Princess Kaʻiulani in 1955. Formerly the site of the Moana cottages, the land was cleared in 1953 to make way for a new high-rise.

At the time, the hotel’s Princess Wing was the tallest building in Hawaiʻi (11 stories, 131 feet above the ground). It was the largest hotel built in Hawai‘i, since The Royal Hawaiian in 1927.

In 1959 (the year Hawai‘i entered statehood and jet airline travel was initiated to the State,) Matson sold all of its hotel properties, including the four year-old Princess Kaʻiulani Hotel, to the Sheraton hotel chain.

Hotels weren’t the only end-of-the-line attraction.

Honolulu Rapid Transit and Land Company – Waikīkī Aquarium
The Waikīkī Aquarium opened on March 19, 1904; it is the third oldest aquarium in the United States. Its adjacent neighbor on Waikīkī Beach is the Natatorium War Memorial.

Then known as the Honolulu Aquarium, it was established as a commercial venture by the Honolulu Rapid Transit and Land Company, who wished to “show the world the riches of Hawaiʻi’s reefs”.

It was also a practical objective of using the Aquarium as a means of enticing passengers to ride to the end of the new trolley line in Kapi‘olani Park, where the Aquarium was located. (The trolley terminus was across Kalākaua Avenue from the Aquarium, near the current tennis courts.)

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OR&L Train thunders past Mokuleia Field, Oahu,-(hawaii-gov-hawaiiaviation)-c1942-1943-400

1930s Matson cruise ship departs Honolulu for San Francisco

Matson-Royal_Hawaiian-Princess_Kaiulani-Moana-Surfride-Hotels_Ad-(eBay)-1958

Archibald Cleghornʻs 50 years of membership in the British Club, taking place at Haleiwa Hotel

circa 1910, from The Advertiser's archives shows the old Hale'iwa Hotel

Moana Hotel-Apuakehau Stream-(Kanahele)-1915

BVD 14-1-31-32 royal hawaiian hotel aerial August.22_750-150w-Kamehameha Schools Archives

BVD-14-1-31-41-Bertha Young residence and Royal Hawaiian hotel_150w-KamehamehaSchoolsArchives

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May 13, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

ʻAʻala International Park

Hard as it may be to conceive today, in the 1880s the entire area near ʻAʻala Park and the OR&L train station (now a Human Services Building) was under water. The original 1889 OR&L station was built on stilts and the train tracks ran on hastily-placed fill.

Just ʻEwa of Chinatown was swampy lowland bordered Nuʻuanu Stream; it was an area that many wished to see developed. It used to include private lands that were conveyed to the Minister of Interior in 1871.

On May 14, 1898, the Republic of Hawaiʻi officially adopted “an act to convert land at Kaliu … into free public recreation grounds, and to maintain the same as such under the supervision of the Minister of the Interior.”

They called the nearly 4-acres “River Park.” (The Territorial government confirmed the same in 1915.)

The project was underway in 1898, with the masonry work completed the following year walling in Nuʻuanu stream’s banks, allowing sand and rocks to be brought in. Nuʻuanu Stream formed the Waikīkī boundary of the new park, and Chinatown the other three sides.

Reportedly, it was announced in 1900, when it was decided the park should be converted from “a barren waste composed of harbor dredging into a resort of beauty.”

Bounded on one side by Nuʻuanu Stream and by Chinatown – with its laundries, shops, slaughterhouses, rail yards, piers and tenements – on the other three sides, the park was born.

Later named ʻAʻala Park (officially, ʻAʻala International Park,) it featured a bandstand and two baseball diamonds and baseball became the park’s defining image. The ʻAʻala Park comfort station, built in 1916, was the first public restroom in Honolulu.

ʻAʻala Park, dedicated to “Almighty Baseball” in 1902, evolved as a result of insistent public clamor that called for filling in this marshy section of lwilei.

Avid fans came out to watch their local teams – the Honolulus, the Kamehamehas, the Punahous, the Athletes and the Maile Ilimas (the top five teams in 1902.)

Later, Japanese and Chinese leagues were formed. “ʻAʻala Park is a public park where baseball is almost constantly in progress.” (Schnack)

On a week-end afternoon during the 1900s, two games would often be in progress at the same time. Japanese push carts bristling with soda water bottles, peanuts, cigars, cakes and candy, served the spectators rain or shine. (Saga – Scott)

Horse drawn hacks, filled with boisterous participants and excited onlookers, converged upon ʻAʻala from all parts of Honolulu. Umbrellas sprouted like magic when showers moved down Nuʻuanu Valley, folded with the clouds passing, and then reappeared when the mid-day sun beat mercilessly down. (Saga – Scott)

The park, one of the oldest in Hawaiʻi, benefitted from the first project of the then newly-formed Outdoor Circle (TOC;) founded by Mrs. Frederick J. (Cherilla) Lowrey, Miss Frances Lawrence, Mrs. Charles M. (Anna Rice) Cooke, Mrs. Henry (Ida) Waterhouse, Mrs. George (Laura) Sherman, Mrs. Isaac M. (Catharine) Cox and Miss Kulamanu Ward, TOC’s mission was to “Keep Hawai‘i clean, green and beautiful.”

The Outdoor Circle’s maiden project (1912) was the planting of twenty two monkey-pod trees “to shade the children’s play space,” this being the City’s first playground.

ʻAʻala also boasted a sizeable bandstand ʻEwa of the baseball diamonds with a two-story tenement conveniently overlooking the activity. Although political rallies were regularly held at the Park, the name ʻAʻala to Honoluluan’s was synonymous with baseball. (Saga – Scott)

Until 1947, the train ran from Kaʻena Point into Honolulu, with the line ending directly across from ʻAʻala Park. “Every day the train would leave here, go down to Kaʻena Point, go to Kahuku, go load up the sugar and pineapple in Waialua area, come around the point, stop in Makua to pick up cattle if they had cattle and load up the sugar and go back to town.” (HawaiiHistory)

Chinatown and ʻAʻala Park were the meeting place for urban and rural, land and sea, work and leisure, and cultures from all over the world. (HawaiiHistory)

Half a century later, most of what is known as the ʻAʻala Triangle consisted of slum housing, dance halls, pool rooms and a dilapidated three-story building that housed the ʻAʻala Pawn Shop, at the point of North King and Beretania streets.

Then, in the late-1960s, every structure in the triangle was razed and the entire 4-acre wedge transformed into a landscaped “gateway to Honolulu.” That’s when the City and County of Honolulu (City) asked that the land be conveyed to the City.

By the 1980s, the homeless had returned, along with a growing number of drug dealers, prostitutes and what Honolulu City representatives referred to as other “unsavory elements.” Last time I looked, it’s still a magnet for the homeless.

(Lots of information here is from Saga by Scott, Honolulu-The Story of OR&L and HawaiiHistory-org. The image shows ʻAʻala Park (Saga, Scott.))

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20001121 CTY AALA 01. Aala Park is undergoing renovations. This photo taken from top of Hale Pauahi. SB photo by Ken Ige.

May 9, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

… and a Bottle of Rum

Rum is a beverage that seems to have had its origins on the 17th century Caribbean sugarcane plantations and by the 18th century its popularity had spread throughout world.

Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane byproducts such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation; it is then usually aged in oak barrels.

The origin of the word “rum” is generally unclear. In an 1824 essay about the word’s origin, Samuel Morewood suggested the word ‘rum’ might be from the British slang term for “the best”, as in “having a rum time.”

“As spirits, extracted from molasses, could not well be ranked under the name whiskey, brandy, or arrack, it would be called rum, to denote its excellence or superior quality.” (Samuel Morewood, 1824)

Captain James Cook and the crews of the HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery first made landfall on Kauaʻi in 1778. It is believed that in the holds of both ships were barrels of rum.

According to Kamakau, “The first taste that Kamehameha and his people had of rum was at Kailua in 1791 or perhaps a little earlier, brought in by Captain Maxwell. Kamehameha went out to the ship with (John) Young and (Isaac) Davis when it was sighted off Keāhole Point and there they all drank rum. …. Then nothing would do but Ka-lani-moku must get some of this sparkling water, and he was the first chief to buy rum.”

Shortly thereafter, while in Waikīkī, after having tasted the “dancing water,” Kamehameha I gained the apparent honor of having spread the making of rum from Oʻahu to Hawaiʻi island. (Kanahele)

After he saw a foreigner make rum in Honolulu, he set up his own still. Spurred by his own appetite for rum, he soon made rum drinking common among chiefs and chiefesses as well as commoners. (Kanahele)

Many of the subsequent royalty and chiefs also drank alcoholic beverages (several overindulged.)

Within a decade or so, Island residents were producing liquor on a commercial basis. “It was while Kamehameha was on Oahu that rum was first distilled in the Hawaiian group,” wrote Kamakau.

“In 1809 rum was being distilled by the well-known foreigner, Oliver Holmes, at Kewalo, and later he and David Laho-loa distilled rum at Makaho.” Several small distilleries were in operation by the 1820s.

Although both Hawaiians and foreign residents had been drinking hard liquor – either bought from visiting ships or distilled locally – for many years, no mention of bars or saloons occurs in the historical record.

The early missionaries were not teetotalers – their departure from Boston Harbor was delayed because “on the passengers examining their stores, they found a short supply of that article at day light Capt. Blanchard went up to Boston at 11 am (October 24, 1819). Captain Blanchard returned from town with a supply of bread & spirits for the missionaries.” (James Hunnewell Log)

“(I)t was ascertained that our soft bread and crackers and all the ardent spirits were left behind. Consequently, a boat was sent off for Boston that night, which did not return until the next day towards night.” (Lucia Ruggles Holman Journal)

Once they arrived, Sybil Bingham noted in her diary, “(Anthony Allen) set upon the table decanters and glasses with wine and brandy to refresh us”. They ended dinner “with wine and melons”. (June 24, 1820, Sybil Bingham)

By November 1822, Honolulu had seventeen grog shops operated by foreigners. Drinking places were one of the earliest types of retail business established in the Islands.

Whalers – primarily American vessels – began arriving in Hawai’i in the early 19th century; they were hunting whales primarily for the whale oil for heating, lamps and in industrial machinery; they usually stopped as they crossed the Pacific twice a year to restock provisions, replenish their crews and transship their whale oil cargoes.

For Hawaiian ports, especially Honolulu and Lāhaina, the whaling fleet was the crux of the economy for 20-years or more. More than 100-ships stopped in Hawaiian ports in 1824. Over the next two decades, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846, 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai’i.

With these ships and sailors came more rum; it became one of the sought-after items the Hawaiians traded for with the Westerners.

“For some years after the arrival of missionaries at the islands it was not uncommon in going to the enclosure of the king, or some other place of resort, to find after a previous night’s revelry, exhausted cases of ardent spirits standing exposed and the emptied bottles strewn about in confusion amidst the disgusting bodies of men, women and children lying promiscuously in the deep sleep of drunkenness.” (Dibble)

Fort Kekuanohu along Honolulu Harbor served as a jail for breaches of etiquette by sailors on liberty – disorderly sailors could find themselves lodged in the Fort pending redemption at $30 a head.

In 1874, a legislative act was passed that allowed distillation of rum on sugar plantations. According to a report in ‘The Friend,’ “the only planter in the Legislature voted three times against the passage of the Act.”

The first export of Hawaiian rum was made on May 15, 1875 – the product of Heʻeia Plantation.

The post WW II years saw new rum concoctions. Reportedly, Harry Yee invented the Blue Hawaii cocktail and dropped in a tiny Japanese parasol and Vic Bergeron created the Mai Tai and opened Trader Vic’s, America’s first theme restaurant that featured the art, decor and food of Polynesia.

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Rum Ration

RUM RATION ABOARD HMS KING GEORGE V, 1940 (A 1777) Below deck, a line of seamen queue to collect the daily rum ration for their mess. Each man is holding a jug or bucket. The rum is being issued from a large barrel with ‘THE KING – GOD BLESS HIM’ on it. Royal Marines issue the rum with measuring jugs while a Royal Navy Petty Officer and Sub-Lieutenant observe. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205185139

Rum Ration

Victor_Bergeron-Trader_Vic’s_Invents_Mai_Tai-1944

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Trader Vic’s International Market Place

May 2, 2020 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Road to Hāna

The Maui News reported that this “fine piece of road” was of “practically no benefit”.

They later changed their tune and called it a “great road making achievement in the Islands, fraught with tremendous difficulties in engineering and construction work” and completed by “dare-devil exploits.” (NPS)

OK, it’s called “Hāna Highway” but that name conjures up the wrong images of what this roadway is all about. Drive slowly, because you can’t drive fast, anyway.

It’s 52-miles long; there are 620-curves, 59-bridges and 8-culverts … in your slow motion ride, along the way you will also see a variety of scenic views, including the ocean, mountains, sea cliffs, waterfalls, small villages, native and exotic vegetation and traditional landscapes.

This transportation link has a long history … let’s look back.

Back in the 15th Century (around the time Columbus was crossing the Atlantic,) Maui was divided into two Royal Centers, Lāhainā and Hāna. Back then, the canoe was the primary means of travel around and between the Islands.

Piʻilani, ruling from the Royal Center in Lāhaina, where he was born (and died,) gained political prominence for Maui by unifying the East and West of the island, elevating the political status of Maui.

Famed for his energy and intelligence, Piʻilani constructed the West Maui phase of the noted Alaloa, or long trail (also known as the King’s Highway.) His son, Kihapiʻilani laid the East Maui section and connected the island.

This trail was the only ancient pathway to encircle any Hawaiian island (not only along the coast, but also up the Kaupo Gap and through the summit area and crater of Haleakalā.)

Four to six feet wide and 138 miles long, this rock-paved path facilitated both peace and war. It simplified local and regional travel and communication, and allowed the chief’s messengers to quickly get from one part of the island to another.

Missionaries Richards, Andrews and Green noted in 1828, “a pavement said to have been built by Kihapiʻilani, a king … afforded us no inconsiderable assistance in traveling as we ascended and descended a great number of steep and difficult paries (pali.)” (Missionary Herald)

The 1848 account of Moses Manu noted, “This road was treacherous and difficult for the stranger, but when it was paved by Kihapiʻilani this road became a fine thing.” (NPS)

The first modern roads on Maui began to be built around the late-1800s. Many of these early roads led to and from different plantations in the town of Hāna, where sugar, pineapple, wheat and rubber all flourished. In 1849, George Wilfong opened the first sugar mill in Hāna near Kaʻuiki Hill.

The modern history of the Hāna Belt Road began in the 1870s when fifteen miles of unpaved road was built from central Maui into East Maui’s rain forest to facilitate the construction of the Hāmākua Ditch (to carry water for irrigation of central Maui’s sugar plantations.)

By 1883, the number of sugar plantations in Hāna grew to six. At this time there were small roads going from one plantation to another, as well as partial routes to Kahului from Hāna or from Pāʻia to Hāna. The problem was a lack of reliable roads into and out of Hāna.

The journey to Hāna was made partly over unpaved wagon roads and horse trails, often rendered impassable by damage from frequent rains. The most common means of travel to Hana was by steamer ship. Writer Robert Wenkam states that …

“When Hana was without a road, and the coastal steamer arrived on a weekly schedule, Hana-bound travelers unwilling to wait for the boat drove their car to the road’s end … rode horseback … walked down the switchback into Honomanu Valley.”

“… By outrigger canoe it was a short ride beyond Wailua to Nahiku landing where they could borrow a car for the rest of the involved trip to Hana. Sometimes the itinerary could be completed in a day. Bad weather could make it last a week.” (Library of Congress)

In 1900, folks saw the need to extend a good wagon road through to Hāna, which would be part of the island’s “belt” (around-the-island) road system. That year, a rudimentary road was built from Ke’anae to Nahiku.

The 1905 Superintendent of Public Works report stated that “very rough country is encountered in these districts. On account of the great expenses of road construction, the road has been made as narrow as possible in order to construct, with the money available, the maximum length of road”. (LOC, Territory of Hawaiʻi 1905)

Overland travel continued by horse and many travelers followed the trails along the irrigation ditches. Steamers remained the preferred mode of transportation for travel along the Hāna Coast.

Beginning in 1908, in anticipation of road improvements, twenty-four solid-paneled, reinforced-concrete bridges were built by 1915; from 1916 to 1929, an additional thirty-one bridges were built with a reinforced-concrete.

A large part of the road to Hāna was constructed by prison labor based at the Keʻanae Prison Camp. The camp was built in 1926 to house the prisoners who would construct the road, including several bridges from Kailua to Hana. When the road was completed, men from Keʻanae to Hāna town were hired to maintain the road, especially during the rainy season. (McGregor)

Finally, after multiple phases of road and bridge construction, the Hāna Belt Road was opened to the public on December 18, 1926. Honiron, a publication of Honolulu Iron Works, described the road as “spectacularly chiseled out of abrupt cliffs and precipitous valleys.” The road was not paved along its entire length when it was opened in 1926. (NPS)

Miles of the roadway were nothing more than a 16′-wide shelf cut into the mountainside, with towering masses of rock above and sheer drops measuring hundreds of feet to the ocean below. (NPS)

The Maui News claimed the road was the most scenic drive way in the world, with vistas of lofty mountains, the Pacific Ocean, wild canyons, cataracts, waterfalls and luxurious tropical vegetation. Signs marked “bad turn” and “go slow” were installed to mark dangerous curves and other points in the road. The average speed for driving the Hana Belt Road was 20-mph. (NPS)

The Hāna Highway portion of the “belt road” traverses approximately fifty-two miles along Maui’s north and east coast from Kahului in central Maui to the remote East Maui community of Hāna. After Hāna, the road continues as the Piʻilani Highway. Together, these East Maui roads were part of Maui’s “belt” road system around the entire island. (NPS)

It is not just a road; it is an attraction … for all, an experience.

In August 2000, the Hāna Highway was officially designated a Millennium Legacy Trail. The designation is given to trails that reflect the essence and spirit of our nation’s states and territories.

Millennium Legacy Trails are representative of the diversity of trails; rail-trails and greenways, historic trails, cultural itineraries, recreation paths, waterways, alternative transportation corridors and many other types of trails. (Rails to Trails Conservancy) On June 15, 2001, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

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Aerial view, Kahawaihapapa Bridge looking west - Hana Belt Road-219623pv

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Hana Belt Road view looking southwest, 1 mile north of Kalepa bridge and south of Koukou'ai bridge -Hana Belt Road-(LOC)-218251cv

Hana Belt Road where it cuts into a bluff three ridges north of Kalepa bridge, marking the official end of the road-(LOC)-218252cv

View looking east to Keanae Peninsula, Hana Belt Road-(LOC)-218245cv

Honomanu Gulch, looking west - Hana Belt Road-LOC)-218244cv

View south along Hana Belt Road, half mile south of Pua'alu'u Bridge-(LOC)-218253cv

Kings Highway footpath between Wainopoli State Park and Town of Hana-Hana Belt Road-(LOC)-219754pv

Kings Highway footpath from O Hale Hei au - Hana Belt Road-(LOC)-219756pv

Kings Highway footpath showing rounded rocks laid into lava bed - Hana Belt Road-(LOC)-219755pv

Roadside view of Hana Belt Road-(LOC)-219663pv

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April 30, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Beaver Block

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, it merged with North West Company, its competitor; the resulting enterprise then 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.)

On January 21, 1829 the Hudson’s Bay Company schooner ‘Cadboro’ arrived at Honolulu from Fort Vancouver. While the HBC fur trade focused furs of beavers, sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska to be sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods, their interest in Hawaiʻi was to sell lumber and other goods, not furs.

When the Hudson’s Bay Company entered the Hawaiian scene in 1829, Honolulu had already become a significant Pacific port of call and major provisioning station for trans-Pacific travelers.

The earliest location of the Agency in Honolulu was on the north side of Nuʻuanu Street (between King and Merchant Streets,) where it occupied a two-story, shingle-sided building.

“The premises were named “Aienui,” meaning “great debt,” perhaps in reference to the Company’s liberal policy of granting credit on reasonable security, such as was and still is granted to the Indians on their prospective winter catch.” (The Beaver, June 1930)

In 1846 the Agency moved to a new site closer and more convenient to the waterfront at the corner of Fort and Queen Streets. They had a two-story coral building with slate roof, fronting on Queen Street, and one-story storage building along Fort Street.

Thereafter, the location of their establishment became known as the “Beaver Block,” named after the HBC ‘mascot’ (and primary economic resource,) the beaver.

As the year 1859 started, Pacific whaling entered its decline, HBC’s competition in the importation of goods increased. Janion Green and Co (forerunner of Theo H Davies), Hackfeld and Co (forerunner of Amfac,) C Brewer, and Castle and Cooke (the beginnings of the Big Five) were established firms.

Instructed to wind up affairs in 1860, the last Company representative left Honolulu in March 1861. The Company’s old Fort and Queen business site, however, continued to be known as the Beaver Block. Other businesses moved into the premises.

Twenty years passed, during them, Lunalilo ascended to the throne and died within a year; his estate took control of the property and their trustees sold it to James Campbell. In 1882, Campbell built a new building and put the old iron beaver weathervane of the Hudson’s Bay Company on its roof – affirming the Beaver Block tradition.

“Thousands of Honolulans who pass up and down Fort Street and visit the wharves have probably never lifted their eyes high enough on such trips to notice on the Makai-Waikiki cornice of the Campbell block at Fort and Queen Streets a weather-beaten weather vane, with the letter “N” missing from that particular arm and to notice that the vane itself resembles a well-known forest and stream animal…. It took a visitor from Winnipeg, Canada, to notice that the animal was a beaver …” (Advertiser, March 31, 1930; The Beaver)

Beaver Block was a large building that included uses such as storage, shops and offices that stretched along Fort Street and Queen. That year, Campbell, who owned the adjacent land (fronting Fort and Merchant Streets) built the “Campbell Block,” a similarly-large building that included uses such as storage, shops and offices.

“The activity of building, throughout Honolulu and its suburbs, continues. That in the business portion of the city gives it the most substantial aspect of any years undertaking, the most prominent of which is the Campbell Block, extending from the Bank premises on Merchant street around onto Fort street to join the Beaver Block …. In the buildings that have been constructed a more lavish style is observed, and ornamentation externally and internally is now the rule rather than the exception, both in business houses and private dwellings.” (Hawaiian Almanac and Annual, 1884)

The first elevators in Hawai‘i were installed in the early 1880s. One was in the Beaver Block, a two-story structure at Fort and Queen Streets, completed in 1882. (The elevator was replaced by an electric elevator.)

Another pioneering elevator was located near the front of a two-story brick building occupied by Wing Wo Chan & Co., on Nu‘uanu Avenue between King and Merchant Streets. This structure was lost in the 1886 Chinatown fire.) (Hawaiian Historical Society)

A notable Beaver Block tenant was GW MacFarlane & Co, shipping and general wholesale merchants. George W. MacFarlane was born in Honolulu in 1849. He got a job with Theo Davies in 1868 and stayed with the firm until 1876.

McFarlane became a prominent attendant to King Kalākaua and merchant in Honolulu during the 1870s-1880s. He was also associated with Spreckels and other financiers in sugar interests. He died in 1921.

Another tenant in the building was the Beaver Saloon, opened on April 5, 1882 by HJ Nolte (who also had “The Casino” on his property at Kapiʻolani Park.)

The Beaver Saloon was “a favorite lunch resort for a large majority of the business element, the civil service, the factory and waterfront toilers, judges, lawyers and doctors … (and) has indeed been the most frequented noonday club in Honolulu, a recognized exchange for public opinion and clearing house for community gossip.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 29, 1907)

Then, on October 11, 1964, the Sunday Star-Bulletin and Advertiser noted, “Office-Parking Building Planned by Campbell Estate on Fort Street.”

Plans called for a combined office and parking structure to replace the 2-story on Fort and Merchants Streets; this new building was considered an important part of the redevelopment of downtown Honolulu. (Adamson) The Beaver Block and Campbell Block buildings were torn down and a new building was completed in May 1967.

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