Economy | Page 2 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

November 29, 2025 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Karsten Thot

An inventory of bridges on Oʻahu, published in 1983, listed 127 built before 1940 and still standing.

Oʻahu’s 127 historic bridges are composed of five different types: reinforced concrete arch bridges, steel bridges, timber bridges, reinforced concrete deck girder bridges and reinforced flat slab bridges.

The historic steel bridges are further divided into three separate types; warren truss, steel girder and metal flume. A bridge is considered historic if built before 1940 and is associated with people and events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of Hawaii’s history.

The Karsten Thot Bridge was identified as worthy of historic recognition.

It was built in Wahiawa over the north fork of the Kaukonahua stream in 1932, by the John L Young Construction and Engineering Company for a price of just over $65,500.

The bridge is named after Karsten Thot, who was a prominent community-minded citizen and it was built by a prominent Honolulu businessman, who was a prolific builder.

The bridge-building company merged with another construction company and upon completion of the Thot bridge called itself the Hawaiian-American Construction Co.

Built in the style of steel railway bridges throughout the continent, it is the only structure of its type in existence on Oʻahu; due to salt water erosion problems steel bridges were phased out on Oʻahu.

The structure is a Warren-type through-truss steel bridge, with a single span 210-feet in length and 40-feet wide, with a vertical clearance of the bridge is 13’5″.

Karsten Thot was born in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, on Feb. 12, 1889. He came to Hawaii in 1904. Thot worked as a field supervisor for Hawaiian Pineapple Co.

In addition, an announcement in the paper noted, ‘Karsten Thot, manager of the Hawaii Preserving Company, has opened a butcher shop at Castner Station, near Schofield Barracks.’ (Honolulu Star-bulletin, July 09, 1915)

Thot died in 1932, the year the bridge was under construction. He was survived by a wife and three children.

He “was very active in community affairs when the Honolulu Board of Supervisors under Charles Crane asked if they could name the bridge after him. This was not carried out until Fred Wright became mayor in 1937. In 1974 a memorial plaque was placed on the bridge by the family.” (Thompson)

When built, the bridge was said to be an important transportation link between the North Shore and Honolulu, contributing to the growth of Wahiawa.

That ultimately changed after the construction of the H-2 freeway, when Kamehameha Highway no longer was “the primary circum-island road.”

Critical emergency structural repairs have been made to the 80+-year-old steel bridge, including replacing rivets and repairing and replacing steel beams.

(Lots of information here from a report by Bethany Thompson, Honolulu-gov and Watanabe, Star-Bulletin.)

November 28, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ice

Refrigeration first came to Hawai‘i in the middle of the nineteenth century.

“The first Boston ice brought to these islands, was received on the 14th inst. (September 14, 1850) by brig Fortunio, Hasty, via San Francisco.” (Polynesian, September 21, 1850)

Then, “(a) few tons of ice were brought to this port from San Francisco by the bark Harriet T Bartlet, Capt Heeren, and a part sold by our friend Thompson, at auction, on Tuesday.”

“This is the first importation of the kind, in any quantity, to this market, and but the beginning, it is to be hoped, of a regular supply of this luxury to the inhabitants of this city.” (Polynesian, June 26, 1852)

More came … “Ice! Ice! Ice! Just Received – 400 Tons Fresh Pond Boston Ice … have just been received by the (Mountain Wave) and are for sale by the Honolulu Ice Co. CH Lewers, Proprietor” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, October 21, 1858)

Then, they started to make ice in the Islands.

“Ice Manufacture. The establishment on the Esplanade for the manufacture of ice by chemical process, has been in operation during several days past. “

“Like all new beginnings, difficulties have had to be met and overcome, but yesterday the machinery was in the full tide of successful experiment, and to-day we expect to be able to see home-made ice.”

“It is expected that enough will be manufactured to supply the demand for the city, and at such rates as will prevent the necessity of importing the luxury from California.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, September 2, 1871)

“Manufactured Ice – The ice machine has resumed work again and arrangements are now complete for a regular supply, which we understand will be furnished at about one-third less than the imported article has lately been sold.”

“The proprietor has not only been at a great expense in bringing this machine here, but in having it altered to suit the temperature of the water in this climate. A regular supply of ice at the reasonable price asked, will doubtless cause it to become an actual necessity.” (Hawaiian Gazette, October 4, 1871)

“Ice and Iced Drinks. We are glad to know that the Ice Manufactory is at length established as a permanency, and is capable of turning out about 3,000 pounds daily of a fine article of pure ice.”

“We approve of the enterprise for several reasons. First on the policy of encouraging all home enterprises that are laudable, and second, we believe that the general and moderate use of ice is healthy, and that iced drinks are social reformers.”

“A loss by perspiration, whether by heat or labor, or both combined, excites the feeling of thirst, and that thirst must be satisfied. How much better, on all accounts, a glass of iced lemonade, soda water, or ginger pop, slowly imbibed, than imported tipple of beer, stout, whiskey, or suicidal absinthe!”

“And what an improvement does the house-wife find in satisfactorily carrying on her culinary duties with a few pounds of ice in the chest. Thus our experience of the benefits of ice, even in this hot climate, is in favor of the opinion of the London Liberal Review, a late number of which says that …”

“… ‘the introduction on a large scale of iced-non-intoxicating drinks for the English hot weather would be a great advantage to a thirsty public, and we believe would tend to lessen the number of drunkards.’” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, December 16, 1871)

Air conditioning first appeared in theaters. In 1912 or 1913, the Hawaiian Opera House experimented with electric fans blowing over large tubs filled with cakes of ice. Other theaters subsequently installed more sophisticated refrigerating equipment, although full-scale air conditioning did not appear in Island movie houses until the Hawai‘i Theater’s unveiling of a completely modern system in 1935.

Other early examples of air conditioning included the Metropolitan Market in 1917, McInerny’s store on Merchant Street in 1926 or 1927, and the Queen’s Hospital asthma ward in 1936. The first fully air conditioned home was built in 1938. (Schmitt)

By 1922, Hawaiian Electric had constructed lines to serve Wailupe and Kuliouou, Schofield and Pearl Harbor, Kahuku and Laie, Lualualei and Ewa. The following year, families in Kailua and Lanikai had electricity.

By 1924, the population of Honolulu exceeded 125,000 and the company reported selling 7,000 “cooking and heating” appliances. In 1927, Hawaiian Electric’s new King Street building opened for business. (HECO)

The first home electric refrigerators sold in Hawaii were reportedly Kelvinators, introduced by the Hawaiian Electric Company in 1922.

Newspaper advertisements for electric refrigerators did not appear until 1925, however, when Hawaiian Electric began running display ads for “Kelvinator, the Oldest Domestic Electric Refrigeration.” (Schmitt)

November 26, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Anuenue

It was created by the filling of the reef flats during incremental dredging of Honolulu harbor and Ke‘ehi lagoon. The village of Kou, inland of it, had a long history of settlement.

It originally consisted of marginal sandy lands on an elevated coral reef platform named Kahololoa. This reef was cut by stream channels on the west and east which were later developed into the Kalihi channel and the Honolulu harbor channel on the east.

In the 1840s, there were several islands or dryland areas on the off shore reef flats. In late-1868 a visiting ship unloaded passengers who were exposed to smallpox on Kahololoa reef.

A few months later, in early 1869, a small island on the reef, Kamoku‘akulikuli, was leased by Kamehameha III’s government and used as a quarantine station. By 1888 the island which had been enlarged was known as Quarantine Island.

In 1902 title to Quarantine Island was transferred to the US after the establishment of a marine hospital by the US Public Health Service. Over the next few years dredged materials from improvements to Honolulu harbor had enlarged the island again and by 1906 the island was encircled by a seawall.

In 1916, Sand Island Military Reservation was established on the reclaimed land of the quarantine station. Subsequent episodes of harbor improvements resulted in enlarging the island and, by 1925 the reef around Sand Island had been removed and the island was completely surrounded by water.

During the early 1940s, Sand Island became the headquarters of the Army Port and Service Command and in the early 1940s the island was further enlarged with fill materials from the dredging of the seaplane runway.

It is approximately 520 acres in area and shelters Honolulu Harbor from the open ocean. It is connected to the island of O’ahu by a bascule bridge at the western end of the island. (DLNR)

In 1959, by Executive Order 10833, the Department of the Army transferred the Island to the Territory of Hawaii. In 1963 ownership was transferred to the State of Hawaii (Star Bulletin, March 12, 1991). (Dye)

For a time it was called Anuenue Island. That changed in 1969 when a proclamation by memorandum of the Governor declared the Island shall be named Sand Island and that name is shall be used on all official state maps, documents and correspondence. (§6E-36)

One of the few lasting legacies of the Island’s former name is Anuenue Fisheries Research Center (AFRC,) a base yard, hatchery and culture center for DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources – it’s still operating on the Island.

The AFRC is involved in all aspects of our fisheries and aquaculture programs. Activity there involves the production of channel catfish and rainbow trout for stocking of public fishing areas at Nuʻuanu (Oʻahu) and Kokeʻe (Kauai.) Moi is also raised there and released at Waikīkī and elsewhere.

The physical facilities include: (1) an office complex; (2) a 7,000 square feet complex that houses a biological-chemical laboratory, freshwater fish hatchery, workshop and storage areas for fisheries survey gear, equipment and boats; (3) a 19,000 square feet thermos-controlled hatchery building; (4) the Chief Biologist’s residence; and (5) quarantine facility for aquatic animal disease studies. (DLNR)

The Anuenue Fisheries facility served to help battle the invasive seaweeds at Kāneʻohe Bay. Seaweed is threatening to smother coral patch reefs in the area; sea urchins eat seaweed.

AFRC reared 250,000-sea urchins that have been placed on selected reefs in the Bay. As a result of the urchins, “we are seeing a reduction of invasive alien seaweeds in the targeted areas.” (DLNR; KITV)

Alien invasive seaweed has plagued Kaneohe Bay for more than 30 years. While I was at DLNR, in 2005, DLNR, The Nature Conservancy and the University of Hawaiʻi developed a two-tier approach to the problem.

First they removed the algae, typically using the ‘Super Sucker’ (a mobile vacuum system that removes algae using suction generated from a pump system housed on a pontoon barge. Divers gently remove the invasive algae from reefs and feed it into a long hose attached to the pump.)

The pump sucks the algae back to the barge and onto a sorting table where it is bagged. Bags of algae are delivered to local farmers who use the nutrient rich algae as fertilizer on crops such as taro and sweet potatoes. Smothering Seaweed is high in potassium and is believed to repel insects from crops. (Super Sucker)

The Super Sucker has been working in the Bay since 2006. The pump system can remove hundreds of pounds of algae an hour, and in 2010 removed over 98,000 pounds of invasive algae.

Then, native sea urchins are placed on the cleared reef patches to eat and keep down the remaining seaweed as a biocontrol of invasive algae.

“These native, herbivorous urchins maintain the areas like ocean gardeners or little goats of the sea. They keep the seaweed in check and give the corals a chance to recover.” (David Cohen, DLNR; KITV)

Oh, some of the other names for what is now called Sand Island? … Anuenue; Akulikuli; Kahakaʻaulana; Kahololoa; Kamokuʻākulikuli ; Mauliola; Moku Akulikuli; Quarantine Island and Rainbow Island.

November 22, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Where America’s Day Really Begins’

An island is a body of land surrounded by water. (Continents are also surrounded by water, but because they are so big, they are not considered islands.) An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef, island, or series of islets. The atoll surrounds a body of water called a lagoon. (National Geographic)

Wake is a small tropical coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean consisting of three islands (Peale, Wake, and Wilkes) enclosing a shallow, central lagoon and surrounded by a narrow fringing reef.

From reef to reef, the atoll is approximately 5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. The atoll is about 2,460-miles west of Hawaiʻi, 1,600-miles east of Guam and 700-miles north of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands.

Oral traditions claim that the Marshallese knew of Wake Atoll prior to contact with European navigators. The Marshallese name for the atoll was Eneen-Kio or Ane-en Kio, “Island of the kio flower.”

The atoll was a source of feathers and plumes of seabirds. Prized were the wing bones of albatross, from which tattooing chisels could be made. In addition, the rare kio flower grew on the atoll.

Bringing these items to the home atolls implied that the navigators had been able to complete the feat of finding the atoll using traditional navigation skills of stars, wave patterns and other ocean markers. (Spennemann)

Today, it is more commonly referred to as ‘Wake Island’ or ‘Wake Atoll’ (rediscovery of Wake and its naming is usually credited to Captain William Wake of the British trading schooner Prince William Henry, enroute from Port Jackson, Australia to Canton in China in 1792). (NPS)

Wake, to the west of Honolulu, Hawaii, is the northernmost atoll in the Marshall Islands geological ridge and perhaps the oldest living atoll in the world. Wake Atoll was claimed by the United States in 1898; formal possession of Wake was made by the US on January 17, 1899.

Pan American Airways applied in 1935 for permission to establish a seaplane base at Wake for its “Clipper” flying boats, the pioneer trans-Pacific air route: San Francisco, Hawaii, Midway, Wake, Guam, Manila, and later, Hong Kong.

Pan Am commenced its profitable transpacific airmail delivery service on November 22, 1935, and its transpacific passenger service nearly a year later on November 4, 1936. (HALS UM-1) The flight across the Pacific then took six days. (NPS)

Pan Am the blasted over one hundred coral heads from within Wake’s lagoon to prepare a suitable landing area for its “Clippers”. Pan Am passengers debarked at the lagoon-end of a long docking pier and passed through a pavilion on the shore side of the pier on their way to the Pan Am hotel. (HALS UM-1)

Just as a prefab hotel was built on Midway, a prefabricated hotel building was built on Wake. The hotel was Y-shaped, with the lounge and dining room in the center and 20 rooms in each of the two flanking wings. It was sited to take advantage of views across the lagoon.

Between 1935 and 1941, the Pan Am seaplane station on Peale Island consisted of a landing docking and shelter, a single-story hotel, crew and personnel quarters, recreation building, sick bay, shop and warehouse buildings, utility structures and communication facilities. (HALS UM-1)

The location of Wake Island made it a strategic location for both the US and Japan. It was recognized that if war broke out between Japan and the US, Wake could: …

… provide for a defensive outpost; enable long range reconnaissance deep into enemy territory; enable the disruption of shipping; serve as staging ground for offensive operations; and be utilized as an emergency air station. (Butowsky)

Wake was substantially modified by the US to create a military base before WWII. As part of the WWII build-up, by mid-1941, construction of the Naval Air Station seaplane base included a seaplane ramp and parking area on the lagoon side of central Peale Island.

The Japanese declared war on the US with its attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the same day in another time zone attempted to seize Wake Island.

The Japanese opening attack of Wake came swiftly by air at 11:58 am (local time) on December 8, 1941; Wake was defended by about 500-military personnel (about one-quarter of its intended size.) In addition, there were about 1,200-civilian workers on the atoll.

Despite the earlier preparations, none of the defensive installations were sufficiently completed by the time of the Japanese attack. (The facilities were estimated to have been only 65-percent finished.)

The island finally fell on December 23, 1941; with the fall of Wake Island to the Japanese in late-December 1941, Midway became their westernmost US outpost in the central Pacific. More than 700-Japanese were killed during the attacks, while only 52-US military personnel lost their lives.

The Japanese took approximately 1,600 prisoners of war (POWs), 450 of whom were military personnel. The American POWs were sent to Japanese prison camps, mostly in China but some in Japan. Of these 1,600, 360 were retained by the Japanese to work as forced laborers for the Japanese.

In September, 1942, all were removed from the island except for ninety-eight of the prisoners (all civilian heavy equipment operators, except for one doctor) who were kept on Wake to assist the Japanese in developing their defensive positions on the atoll. (HALS UM-1)

(A sad side story notes that on October 7, 1943 when the Japanese saw subsequent invasion of Wake, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of the 98-American civilian prisoners. They were taken to one side of the island and shot with machine guns.)

(One prisoner escaped and carved a memorial into a large rock “98 US PW 5-10-43;” it’s still there. This prisoner was caught and also executed shortly after. After the war, Sakaibara and his subordinate, Lieutenant-Commander Tachibana, were sentenced to hang for this massacre.) The memory of their sacrifice is sustained by the inscription on “POW Rock” on Wilkes Island.

During their almost 4-year occupation of Wake, the Japanese constructed elaborate shoreline defenses. The Japanese widened and lengthened the US-built runway on the eastern side of the south arm of Wake Island and built two additional runways.

From 1941 to 1945, the Japanese stationed as many as 4,000 troops on the atoll at any given time, and they continued their development of Wake Island unabated until June of 1943.

In July of 1943, American bombers, who had begun bombing and shelling Wake since February of 1942, attacked Japanese coastal defense positions. On August 13, 1945, Marine planes conducted their last attack on Japanese positions on Wake, and on September 4, 1945, Admiral Sakaibara surrendered Wake Island back to the US.

Today, Wake serves as a trans-Pacific refueling stop for military aircraft and supports Missile Defense Agency test activities. Wake is currently managed by the Pacific Air Force Support Center located at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska, and falls under 11th Air Force. (15^th Wing)

https://api.dvidshub.net/hls/video/536620.m3u8?api_key=key-55f197190d6a3

A little personal side story … When Pan Am used Midway and Wake as stopping points for flights across the Pacific, my grandmother (Laura Sutherland) was Assistant Head Librarian for the Library of Hawai‘i in charge of the “Extension Department.”

My grandmother took advantage of these flights and expanded the reach of her “Extension Department” by supplying reading material to residents on Midway and Wake, with the cooperation of Pan Am. Each week, a new supply of books was added to the flights in what is believed to be America’s only Flying Library Service.

Oh, the title to this piece? … Guam, a US Territory, adopted a de facto motto is “Where America’s Day Begins”; but that’s not technically true. Wake is 1,500-miles further east, right next to and west of the International Date Line. Given that placement with the Dateline, while most in America are experiencing a new day, folks on Wake are already into tomorrow.

“The dawn’s earliest light — the first rays of sun on US soil – shine upon Wake Island. Every morning America wakes up on Wake Island.” The sign on the Wake airstrip terminal building reads “Where America’s Day REALLY begins.” (CBSNews)

November 21, 2025 by Peter T Young 7 Comments

Club Jetty

“No Tank Tops, No Shorts, No Bare Feet.”

“Club Jetty resembles the scene from an old Bogie flick. There are places like it in Singapore and Hong Kong and Macao. Fans spin overhead. Guests dine of Formica-topped tables.”

“And once a week when the liner Oceanic Independence tied up outside, Mama’s cafebar is swamped.” (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 1, 1981)

Club Jetty opened in 1946; it evolved from ‘Hale Aina’ (Kauai’s first steak house,) a restaurant located a Nāwiliwili Transportation Company building at the bottom of the hill that leads up to Kaua‘i High School.

The restaurant moved to a Nāwiliwili Yacht Club building in about 1950 in part to help cater meals for “Pagan Love Song,” Kaua‘i’s first color feature Hollywood film.

Later Tom King of the Territorial Harbors Division moved it to a larger building along the jetty at Nāwiliwili Harbor … it became Club Jetty. (TGI)

“Mama” Emma Ouye started it; she was born in Hanalei on October 13, 1907, to Chee Chong Hing and Pepe Malia.

Ouye graduated from Kaua‘i High School and was helped in gaining an education through the support of GN Wilcox, a friend of her father. She married Manji James Ouye in 1927. (TGI)

Club Jetty became a leading Kaua‘i night spot, with entertainers coming from Las Vegas, Honolulu and other locales to perform, in addition to Hawaiian, jazz and rock musicians from Kaua‘i during several eras from the 1950s through the 1980s when Nāwiliwili served as the center of nightlife in Līhuʻe and the rest of Kaua‘i.

One notable, Kui Lee, who had been performing on the mainland for about 10-years, returned to Hawaiʻi and came to Club Jetty, in 1961. Then, he became a part-time performer and doorman at Honey’s nightclub in Kaneohe (owned by Emily “Honey” Ho, mother of Don) – launching pad of Don Ho.

Besides a local favorite, Club Jetty also attracted notable celebrities.

One time, in the early 1960s, filming was going on for John Ford’s Donovan’s Reef, with John Wayne, Lee Marvin and others.

During filming of Donovan’s Reef on Kauai the cast stayed at the Kauai Inn on Nāwiliwili Bay. John Ford also had his yacht anchored in Nāwiliwili Harbor. John Wayne and Lee Marvin were reported to be bunking on the yacht.

“John Wayne would swim in, and try to hide the fact that he was all dripping wet. Grandma said she was trying to stop him from doing that.”

“She had him come by when she fed the shark (who frequented the waters off the club.) She would chant at night, to attract shark. John Wayne saw the shark, he was petrified and never swam into the club again.” (Pono Ouye; TGI)

Club Jetty “became a must for visiting celebrities from Washington, DC, to Hollywood and beyond. They were all charmed by Mama and her casual Aloha, returning again for the wonderful food and the good times.” (KHS;TGI)

“If you help people with their life, you will receive help with yours.” (Ouye; TGI)

Unfortunately, like other iconic remnants of the past (as in Coco Palms,) Club Jetty was destroyed in 1992 by Hurricane Iniki.