Economy | Page 130 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

December 11, 2019 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

Spencecliff

Their father, Spencer Fullerton Weaver Sr, was one of the nation’s leading architects in the 1920s. Known as Major Weaver; among many other projects, his firm designed the Waldorf-Astoria, the Hotel Pierre in New York City, the Biltmore Hotels in Los Angeles and Florida, and the Breakers in Palm Beach. He designed and owned the Park Land and Lexington Hotels in New York.

Their mother, Emily Maloney Stokes Weaver, was a noted tennis player; she won two national indoor tennis doubles championships in 1914 (with Clare Cassel) and 1918 (with Eleanor Goss Lanning.)

The family lived in an apartment on Park Avenue, New York and had a country estate known as ‘Spencecliff,’ in East Hampton, Long Island, NY. (washington-edu)

But that ‘Spencecliff’ is not the basis for this story – this story is about the partnership of brothers Spence and Cliff and the Hawaiʻi business they founded, Spencecliff Restaurants.

Queen’s Surf (with its Barefoot Bar,) Tahitian Lanai, Coco’s, Tiki Tops, Fisherman’s Wharf, Senor Popo’s, Trader Vic’s, Kelly’s, South Seas, Ranch House … the list goes on and on.

It was a family operation, run by brothers Spencer (Spence) Fullerton Weaver Jr (May 18, 1911 – Aug 30, 1996) and Clifton (Cliff) Stokes Weaver (Jan 7, 1917 – Jan 23, 1992.)

After a couple visits to the Islands, the boys moved and later, intrigued by the fleet of hot dog trucks in Long Island, they got into the food service business with a half-dozen ‘Swanky Franky’ hot dog carts in 1939; then, later set up a stand at Ena Road and Ala Moana in Waikīkī.

Then came the Patio Restaurant downtown and the Snowflake Bakery; the Weavers also had a catering contract to feed five-thousand at Hickam.

After service in World War II, they formed the Spencecliff Corporation; it grew, and over the next few decades dominated the restaurant scene.

They opened the Sky Room (1948) at the airport terminal at John Rogers Field (now Honolulu International Airport.) In addition to the pre-flight airport presence, Spencecliff catered the food to airline passengers on ten major airlines, including American, JAL, Canadian Pacific, Qantas and Air New Zealand.

At one time, the Spencecliff operation included 50-restaurants, cabarets, coffee shops and snack bars in Hawaiʻi, almost exclusively on the island of Oʻahu. It also operated two hotels, three bakeries and a catering service in Hawaiʻi and two hotels in Tahiti. There were more than 1,500 employees.

Spence Weaver would later be inducted into the Hawaii Restaurant Association’s First Annual Hall of Fame in 2007.

One of the most famous of their operations was the Queen’s Surf (acquired in 1949.) They converted the former home of heir to Fleischmann’s Yeast fortune, Christian Holmes (Holmes also owned Coconut Island,) and turned it into Queen’s Surf; the home was originally build in 1914 by WK Seering of International Harvester Co.

Later (1971,) the property was condemned and Queen’s Surf and the neighboring Kodak Hula Show were evicted and the Waikīkī beachfront area was turned into a public park.

In addition, to the nightclub, there were coffee shops – lots of them – as well as other family-favorites.

Spencecliff was renowned for taking care of its employees, many of whom served for decades. Reportedly, each employee would receive personalized card and a birthday cake from the company bakery the day before their birthday, then were given the day off on their birthday.

All was not happy for the family; in 1958, Cliff’s 15-year-old son, Billy was killed in a tiger shark attack off the Mokulua Islands, on the Windward side.

Then their ownership in the restaurant operations came to an end. In the mid-1980s, increased rents and high interest rates affected Spencecliff’s bottom line; on July 14, 1986, they sold the operation to the Japanese firm, Nittaku Enterprises Co, for $6-million.

Unfortunately, the new owners didn’t have the same understanding/appreciation for the operations and it slowly disappeared.

Gone are the familiar favorites we used to enjoy. On the windward side, Tiki Tops was a family regular; and the ride over the Pali often took us to Fisherman’s Wharf (and its treasure chest for the kids.)

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My mother, Helen Lind, with the Swanky Franky, one of the hot dog stands that began the Spencecliff restaurant empire.

That’s my dad on the right. And I’m guessing he’s sitting with Cliff and Spence Weaver, Spencecliff founders.

December 10, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ala Hele Moʻolelo O Lāhainā

Maui captured “Best Island in the World” honors in the annual Conde Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards Poll for nearly twenty-years in a row. Readers rave about this “veritable paradise,” calling it a “combination of tropical ambience and American comforts.”

Maui is known for its beaches and water activities, and the west side, including Lāhainā, boasts some of the most beautiful shores in Hawaiʻi, and it also has the distinction of having some of the most beautiful sunset views on the planet.

Lāhainā is the second most visited place in Maui – (behind the beaches) – a combination of natural scenic beauty, white sandy beaches, lush green uplands, near-perfect weather, rich culture and a great Hawaiian history in its sunny shores.

From 700 AD to the present, Lāhainā’s Front Street has experienced six major historical eras, from its days as an ancient Hawaiian Royal Center, capital and home of the Hawaiian Monarchy, home to Missionaries, Landing/Provisioning for Whalers, the Sugar and Pineapple Plantation era and now Tourism.

All are still visible in town.

Lāhainā has played an important role in the history of Maui and the neighboring islands of Moloka‘i, Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe, with Lāhainā serving as the Royal Center, selected for its abundance of resources and recreation opportunities, with good surfing and canoe-landing sites.

Probably there is no portion of the Valley Isle, around which gathers so much historic value as Lāhainā. It was the former capital and favorite residence of kings and chiefs. After serving for centuries as home to ruling chiefs, Lāhainā was selected by Kamehameha III and his chiefs to be the capital and seat of government; here the first Hawaiian constitution was drafted and the first legislature was convened.

Hawai‘i’s whaling era began in 1819 when two New England ships became the first whaling ships to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands. 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.

Lāhainā was the port of choice for whaling ships. Central among the islands, Lāhainā was a convenient spot from which to administer the affairs of both Hawaiian and foreigner.

The anchorage being an open roadstead, vessels can always approach or leave it with any wind that blows. No pilot is needed here. Vessels generally approach through the channel between Maui and Molokaʻi, standing well over to Lānaʻi, as far as the trade will carry them, then take the sea breeze, which sets in during the forenoon, and head for the town.

In November 1822, the 2nd Company from the ABCFM set sail on the ‘Thames’ from New Haven, Connecticut for the Hawaiian Islands; they arrived on April 23, 1823 (included in this Company were missionaries Charles Stewart, William Richards and Betsey Stockton – they were the first to settle and set up a mission in Lāhainā.)

The Christian religion really caught on when High Chiefess Keōpūolani (widow of Kamehameha I and mother of future kings) is said to have been the first convert of the missionaries in the islands, receiving baptism from Rev. William Ellis in Lāhainā on September 16, 1823.

In 1831, classes at the new Mission Seminary at Lahainaluna (later known as Lahainaluna (Upper Lāhainā)) began. The school was established by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions “to instruct young men of piety and promising talents” (training preachers and teachers.) It is the oldest high school west of the Mississippi River.

Per the requests of the chiefs, the American Protestant missionaries began teaching the makaʻāinana (commoners.) Literacy levels exploded. From 1820 to 1832, in which Hawaiian literacy grew by 91 percent, the literacy rate on the US continent grew by only 6 percent and did not exceed the 90 percent level until 1902 – three hundred years after the first settlers landed in Jamestown – overall European literacy rates in 1850 had not been much above 50 percent.

The early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully. It was not until ca. 1823 that several members of the Lāhainā Mission Station began to process sugar from native sugarcanes for their tables. By the 1840s, efforts were underway in Lāhainā to develop a means for making sugar as a commodity.

Historically Maui’s second largest industry, pineapple cultivation has also played a large role in forming Maui’s modern day landscape. The pineapple industry began on Maui in 1890 with Dwight D. Baldwin’s Haiku Fruit and Packing Company on the northeast side of the island.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands. The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix. Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places on the globe.

It is believed that Hawai‘i’s first accommodations for transients were established sometime after 1810, when Don Francisco de Paula Marin “opened his home and table to visitors on a commercial basis …. (in) ‘guest houses’ (for) the ship captains who boarded with him while their vessels were in port (Honolulu.)”

Tourism exploded. Steadily during the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the millions of tourists added up. A new record number of visitor arrivals (over 7.8-million visitors) came to the islands in 2012. Tourism is the activity most responsible for Hawaiʻi’s current economic growth and standard of living.

By whatever means (vehicle, transit, bicycle or on foot,) exploring Lāhainā and embracing the scenic beauty, natural features, historic sites, associated cultural traditions and recreational opportunities will give the traveler a greater appreciation and understanding of Hawai‘i’s past and sense of place in the world – and demonstrates why Lāhainā is a “window to the world.”

To commemorate Lāhainā’s rich heritage, the Lāhainā Interpretive Plan Team has designed a series of interpretive signs and orientation maps called Ala Hele Moʻolelo O Lāhainā, the Lāhainā Historic Trail, which is now installed throughout Lāhainā’s two historic districts surrounding Front Street. Lāhainā Restoration Foundation participated in this trail formation.

The historic “trail” is not really a trail, but rather identification of the historical sites scattered throughout Lāhainā. Many have been restored by the Lāhainā Restoration Foundation, and can be found within the core of Lāhainā.

This self-guided walking tour provides a view of each era of the town that is considered one of the most historically significant places in Hawai’i.

Lāhainā is a place where history and culture come alive.

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62-Lahaina-Harbor-Light-1866 lighthouse on the left and new 1905 skeleton tower (lighthouseguy-com)

December 4, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Waiʻalae Country Club

In 1887, Daniel Paul Rice Isenberg (Paulo Liʻiliʻi) (son of the Paul Isenberg, one of the founders of H. Hackfeld & Co. (Amfac) and one of the organizers of the Līhuʻe Sugar plantation) invested a large part of his inheritance in the development of a 3,000-acre ranch at Waiʻalae, Oʻahu.

He obtained the major part of Kaimuki from the Lunalilo and Bishop estates, and used this land for cattle, alfalfa and race horses.

He was the first ranchman in the islands to demonstrate the growth and uses of alfalfa, a valuable stock feed, but he couldn’t realize much of a profit because sugar and rice were top priority, then.

His birthday was on June 11, Kamehameha Day, the day for horse races at Kapiʻolani, and “rarely did it pass without a luau at Waiʻalae Ranch.” King Kalākaua frequently visited Isenberg at his ranch for the evening, for both of them enjoyed the same things, festivities, luaus and singing.

In 1919, after Isenberg’s death, the ranch’s lease was sold to accommodate a dairy by 1924; it was the largest dairy in Honolulu.

Then, in 1927, the Territorial Hotel Co., as part of a promotional program to develop luxury travel trade to Hawaiʻi on the mother company’s Matson Navigation Co. cruise ships, built the Royal Hawaiian Hotel … and with it the Waiʻalae Golf Course.

The hotel and golf course lands were leased from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate. The Golf Course was opened for play on February 1, 1927. In July 1927, the Isenberg ranch home near the mouth of Wai‘alae stream became the club house for the Wai‘alae Golf Course.

Local players were able to use the course, and by payment of annual fees for play became “privilege card holders” in the Territorial Hotel Company’s Waiʻalae Golf Club.

In 1930, a group of these Waiʻalae players formed a private club within the Waiʻalae Golf Club which they called Waiʻalae Country Club. It enlarged a small service building close to the main clubhouse, installed showers and had its own clubhouse where the swimming pool is now located.

The great depression of the 1930s severely reduced travel and resulted in bankruptcy of the Territorial Hotel Co. Matson took over the obligations and interests of the Territorial Hotel Co. which included the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, the Moana Hotel and Waiʻalae Golf Club.

By the 1930s, the beachfront along Kahala Avenue was being developed with homes, while farming continued in other areas. In 1938, more than 50 pig farms were operating in the vicinity of Farmers Road and Kahala Avenues. Residents of the area, citing an increase in rats and mice at Kahala, petitioned the territorial board of health to remove the pig farms (Honolulu Advertiser, December 20, 1938).

During these years, play on the course was mainly by local privilege card holders, most of whom were members of Waiʻalae Country Club.

In August of 1941, fire destroyed the Waiʻalae Pavilion which was used by Waiʻalae Golf Club for dining and dancing, and Matson decided to turn the golf course and remaining buildings over to Waiʻalae Country Club.

Before this plan was consummated, the US had entered World War II, the military had requisitioned the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and numerous military defenses had been installed along Oʻahu’s coastline including the golf course at Waiʻalae.

Waiʻalae Country Club was incorporated on September 30, 1942 and became lessee of the golf course acreage and a small section of land owned by Matson on which the old Isenberg home (later The Pavilion) had been located. The military built a replacement for the Pavilion because of the heavy use of the course by military personnel during the war.

The old Waiʻalae Country Club clubhouse was destroyed by fire in 1952, but through the conversion of the military structure into kitchen and dining facilities, and the building of new locker rooms, Waiʻalae was again in full operation within twenty-four months after the fire.

In the 1953 filming of “From Here to Eternity,” Private Prewitt is shot near the bunker on the first hole at Waiʻalae.

No major physical changes were made in the golf course layout until 1954 when the 15th hole was lengthened from 320 yards to 435 yards. (However, in the early-1960s major reconstruction on the front nine was necessitated in order to provide beachfront areas for the Kahala Hilton Hotel and the Kahala Beach Apartments.)

Tennis courts, swimming pool and added parking units were completed in 1958 and Waiʻalae became a Country Club in fact, as well as, name.

Hawaiian Opens (under various sponsorships) have been held at Waiʻalae since 1928. The First PGA Tour Hawaiian Open Golf Tournament was held in the fall of 1965. Today, Waiʻalae is home to the Sony Open in Hawaiʻi. (Lots of images and information here is from the waialaecc-org.)

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The new golf course at Waialae-(waialaecc-org)-1929.

Ground Breaking for new clubhouse building-(waialaecc-org)-1971

The original home of Waialae Country Club, the former Paul Isenberg garage and servants' quarters-(waialaecc-org)

Clubhouse,-The section on the left was the old Army theater building-(waialaecc-org)-1955

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In the 1953 filming of 'From Here to Eternity,' -(waialaecc-org)

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December 2, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Literacy

“It was like laying a corner stone of an important edifice for the nation.” (Bingham)

“I think literacy was … almost like the new technology of the time. And, that was something that was new. … When the missionaries came, there was already contact with the Western world for many years…. But this was the first time that literacy really began to take hold.”

“The missionaries, when they came, they may have been the first group who came with a [united] purpose. They came together as a group and their purpose was to spread the Gospel the teachings of the Bible.”

“But the missionaries who came, came with a united purpose … and literacy was a big part of that. Literacy was important to them because literacy was what was going to get the Hawaiians to understand the word of the Bible and the written word became very attractive to the people, and there was a great desire to learn the written word. … Hawai‘i became the most literate nation at one time.”

Click HERE for a link to comments by Manu Ka‘iama and Jon Yasuda.

“The Ali‘i Letters project “changed my perspective on the anti-missionary, anti-Anglo-Saxon rhetorical tradition that scholarship has been produced, contemporary scholarship, and it is not to discredit that scholarship, but just to change a paradigm, to shift the paradigm, and it shifted mine.” (Kaliko Martin, Research Assistant, Awaiaulu)

Click HERE for a link to comments by Kaliko Martin.

“The missionary effort is more successful in Hawai‘i than probably anywhere in the world, in the impact that it has on the character and the form of a nation. And so, that history is incredible; but history gets so blurry …”

“The missionary success cover decades and decades becomes sort of this huge force where people feel like the missionaries got off the boat barking orders … where they just kind of came in and took over. They got off the boat and said ‘stop dancing,’ ‘put on clothes,’ don’t sleep around.’ And it’s so not the case ….”

“The missionaries arrived here, and they’re a really remarkable bunch of people. They are scholars, they have got a dignity that goes with religious enterprise that the Hawaiians recognized immediately. …”

“The Hawaiians had been playing with the rest of the world for forty-years by the time the missionaries came here. The missionaries are not the first to the buffet and most people had messed up the food already.”

“(T)hey end up staying and the impact is immediate. They are the first outside group that doesn’t want to take advantage of you, one way or the other, get ahold of their goods, their food, or your daughter. But, they couldn’t get literacy. It was intangible, they wanted to learn to read and write”. (Puakea Nogelmeier)

Click HERE for a link to comments by Puakea Nogelmeier.

Many Are the People – Few Are the Books

“Having just begun to learn to read, Ka‘ahumanu, about this time (1822), embarked with her husband, and visited his islands with a retinue of some eight hundred persons, including several chiefs, and Auna, and William Beals, whom the queen requested us to send as her teacher.”

“On their arrival, the next day, at Waimea, they gave a new impulse to the desire among the people to be instructed, much to the surprise and gratification of Messrs. Whitney and Ruggles, who said their house for several days was thronged with natives pleading for books.”

“They immediately took three hundred under instruction. Their former pupils were now demanded as teachers for the beginners. Ka‘ahumanu, spurring on these efforts, soon sent back to Kamāmalu at Oahu the following characteristic letter.”

“‘This is my communication to you: tell the puu A-i o-e-o-e (posse of Long necks) to send some more books down here. Many are the people – few are the books.”

“I want elua lau (800) Hawaiian books to be sent hither. We are much pleased to learn the palapala. By and by, perhaps, we shall be akamai, skilled or wise. Give my love to Mr. and Mrs. Bingham, and the whole company of Long necks.’” (Ka‘ahumanu; Bingham)

Printing Press

“The first printing press at the Hawaiian Islands was imported by the American missionaries, and landed from the brig Thaddeus, at Honolulu …. It was not unlike the first used by Benjamin Franklin, and was set up in a thatched house standing a few fathoms from the old mission frame house”. (Hunnewell; Ballou)

Without the printing press, the written Hawaiian language, and a learned people of that time, we would know little about the past. (Muench)

“Perhaps never since the invention of printing was a printing press employed so extensively as that has been at the Sandwich islands, with so little expense, and so great a certainty that every page of its productions would be read with attention and profit.” (Barber, 1833)

In the meantime, a Wells-model press arrived at Lahainaluna in 1832 and it carried the major load of the printing there. The mission press also printed newspaper, hymnals, schoolbooks, broadsides, fliers, laws, and proclamations. The mission presses printed over 113,000,000 sheets of paper in 20 years. (Mission Houses)

Literacy was Sought by the People

“A key point in Liholiho’s plan required the missionaries to first teach the aliʻi to read and write. The missionaries agreed to the King’s terms and instruction began soon after.” (KSBE)

The arrival of the first company of American missionaries in Hawai¬ʻi in 1820 marked the beginning of Hawaiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy. The chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

“That the sudden introduction of the Hawaiian nation in its unconverted state, to general English or French literature, would have been safe and salutary, is extremely problematical.”

“The initiation of the rulers and others into the arts of reading and writing, under our own guidance, brought to their minds forcibly, and sometimes by surprise, moral lessons as to their duty and destiny which were of immeasurable importance.” (Hiram Bingham)

“This literacy initiative was continually supported by the aliʻi. Under Liholiho, ships carrying teachers were not charged harbor fees. During a missionary paper shortage, the government stepped in to cover the difference, buying enough paper to print roughly 13,500 books.”

“During this period, there were approximately 182,000 Hawaiians living throughout 1,103 districts in the archipelago. Extraordinarily, by 1831, the kingdom government financed all infrastructure costs for the 1,103 school houses and furnished them with teachers. Our kūpuna sunk their teeth into reading and writing like a tiger sharks and would not let go.” (KSBE)

“This legendary rise in literacy climbed from a near-zero literacy rate in 1820, to between 91 to 95 percent by 1834. That’s only twelve years from the time the first book was printed!” (KSBE)

It was through the cooperation and collaboration between the Ali‘i, people and missionaries that this was able to be accomplished.

Click HERE to view/download more on Literacy.

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Ramage Press replica at Mission Houses

Hawaiian Alphabet

Baibala

Kaahumanu-(HerbKane)

Missionaries_preaching_under_kukui_groves,_1841

November 27, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lāhainā Canal

Hawai‘i’s whaling era began in 1819 when two New England ships became the first whaling ships to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands. Rich whaling waters were discovered near Japan and soon hundreds of ships headed for the area.

The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between America and Japan brought many whaling ships to the Islands. Whalers needed water and food, and the islands supplied this need from its fertile lands.

The whaling industry was the mainstay of the island economy for about 40 years. For Hawaiian ports, the whaling fleet was the crux of the economy.

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.

While it lacked a natural “harbor,” Lāhainā became one of the Islands’ leading whaling ports. Whalers’ small “chase boats” had to come in from the deep-water offshore anchorage to trade.

While the name Lāhainā means “cruel sun” and the area only averages 13 inches of rain per year, spring-fed, freshwater streams and canals once flowed through it .

Reportedly, during the 1790s, British captain George Vancouver visited this part of Maui and called it “the Venice of the Pacific.”

By the 1840s, Hawaiʻi was the whaling center of the Pacific. Lāhainā became a bustling port with shopkeepers catering to the whalers – saloons, brothels and hotels boomed.

The whalers would transfer their catch to trade ships bound for the continent, allowing them to stay in the Pacific for longer periods without having to take their catch to market.

In the 1840s, the US consular representative recommended digging a canal from one of the freshwater streams that ran through Lāhainā and charging a fee to the whalers who wanted to obtain fresh water.

A few years after the canal was built, the government built a thatched Marketplace with stalls for Hawaiians to sell goods to the sailors.

Merchants quickly took advantage of this marketplace and erected drinking establishments, grog shops and other pastimes of interest nearby. Within a few years, this entire area reportedly became known as “Rotten Row.”

In 1859, an oil well was discovered and developed in Titusville, Pennsylvania; within a few years this new type of oil replaced whale oil for lamps and many other uses – spelling the end of the whaling industry.

At about this same time, the sugar industry in Hawaiʻi was beginning to boom. With the growing importance of sugar (and the thirsty crops’ need for water,) waters were diverted to the service of sugar production.

Eventually, the Lāhainā area was drained of its wetlands. In 1913, the canal was filled in to construct Canal Street and the Market is now King Kamehameha III Elementary school.

Later, eleven-and a-half acres of Lāhaina “swamp land” (near the National Guard Armory,) drainage canals and storm sewers were part of the Lāhaina Reclamation District. (1916-1917) Mokuhinia Pond was filled with coral rubble dredged from Lāhaina Harbor.

By Executive Order of the Territory of Hawaii in 1918, the newly-filled pond was turned over to the County of Maui for use as Maluʻuluʻolele Park.

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