General | Page 10 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

August 4, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Making Sugar

In pre-contact times, sugarcane was not processed as we know sugar today, but was used by chewing the juicy stalks. Its leaves were used for inside house thatching, or for outside (if pili grass wasn’t available.) The flower stalks of sugar cane were used to make a dart, sometimes used during the Makahiki games. (Canoe Crops)

The first written record of sugarcane in Hawaiʻi came from Captain James Cook, at the time he made initial contact with the Islands. On January 19, 1778, off Kauai, he notes, “We saw no wood, but what was up in the interior part of the island, except a few trees about the villages; near which, also, we could observe several plantations of plantains and sugar-canes.” (Cook)

Cook notes that sugar was cultivated, “The potatoe fields, and spots of sugar-canes, or plantains, in the higher grounds, are planted with the same regularity; and always in some determinate figure; generally as a square or oblong”. (Cook)

Sugarcane, a tall perennial grass, is grown in tropical and semitropical climates. (USDA)

To plant it, short sections of sugar cane plant stalk containing one or more node are first planted in soil which has been deep-plowed and formed into furrows that follow the contour of the land. In about 24 months a mass of vegetation (up to 10-feet high) has developed and is ready for harvest.

There are two factors that distinguish cane sugar production in Hawaii from cane sugar production in other parts of the world. First, growers do not harvest Hawaiian sugarcane until it is an average of two years old. In most other areas, sugarcane is harvested after one year of growth. (EPA)

Prior to World War II, almost all cane was cut by hand and transported to the sugar mills through an extensive network of water flumes. When water flumes did not exist, mule-drawn wagons carried the cane to rail roads for transport.

Following World War II, mechanical harvesting completely replaced the hand cutting of cane. The most common method of harvesting is to snap off the cane at ground level with a bulldozer-type push rake on a large standard tractor. (EPA)

Sugar cane is processed at two facilities: processing starts at a raw sugar factory and finished at a sugar refinery. The following address raw sugar processing. (Sugar Association)

When harvested, the root structure is left intact so that a second, third, or even fourth crop of sugar cane may be produced from suckers which grow from the root structure of old harvested plants. This process is known as ‘ratooning.’

Bulldozers then rake the cane into piles for cranes, equipped with special grabs, to load the cane into special cane haulers usually consisting of an enormous truck-tractor unit and semi-trailer. (EPA)

The operations necessary for making raw cane sugar are as follows :

The extraction of the juice.
The purification of the juice.
The evaporation of the juice to syrup point.
The concentration and crystallization of the syrup.
The preparation of the crystals or grains for the market by separating them from the molasses. (Rolph)

The cane initially moves to a feeder table, up a conveyor, and then contacts a drum which spreads it out into a thin even blanket. Next it passes over a set of rollers which acts as a primary rock extractor. From there it falls into a flotation bath where rocks and other heavy foreign matter settle in the tank and are carried away. (EPA)

Following the flotation bath, the cane proceeds up a conveyor where heavy washing begins. Next it passes over drums to be shaken and leveled. The root structure holding the stalks together is then broken and here also final washing occurs.

The cane then moves over trash extractors (oppositely spinning rollers) which grab and strip leaves from the stalks. The resulting trash is conveyed away from the cleaning plant. A series of knives then cut the cane into small lengths for crushing by a pair of corrugated rollers.

Typically, the milling is through a tandem of three rollers, and the chopped cane passes through each mill in succession to remove the sugar cane juice. Either three, four, or five mills in a series are employed to squeeze the juice out of the cane stalks. (EPA)

Following extraction, sugar cane juice is sent through a clarifier; after leaving the clarifier, the juice enters a multi-effect steam evaporator from which it emerges with greater density as ‘syrup.’

The syrup then enters vacuum pans where it is converted into molasses. In the pans, sugar crystals are also formed from the syrup by the process of evaporation to saturation. At the end of this operating cycle, the crystals are centrifuged to remove the molasses.

The sugar from the first pan operation is of commercial raw sugar quality and is ready for shipment to a mainland refinery. The molasses remaining from centrifuge of the first boiling operation is called ’A’ molasses. This is returned directly to the pans for a second cycle.

The material from the second pan operation is centrifuged and the sugar produced is also of commercial quality. The molasses remaining from the second pan operation is called ‘B’ molasses. ‘B’ molasses is of low quality sugar content and must be specially processed before additional sugar can be produced. (EPA)

The raw sugar is then sent in bulk to refineries (C&H) for finishing, packaging and marketing/shipping. The initial step in cane sugar refining is washing the sugar, called affination, with warm, almost saturated syrup to loosen the molasses film.

There are a variety of steps of heating, separation of sugar crystals (in centrifuges), screening, washing and clarification. Two clarification methods are commonly used: pressure filtration and chemical treatment.

To produce refined granulated sugar, white sugar is transported by conveyors and bucket elevators to the sugar dryers. The most common sugar dryer is the granulator, which consists of two drums in series. One drum dries the sugar and the other cools the dried sugar crystals.

In addition to granulated sugar, other common refined sugar products include confectioners’ (powdered) sugar, brown sugar, liquid sugar, and edible molasses. (Food and Agricultural Industry; EPA) (The color and flavor of brown sugar come from the residual molasses left in the crystals during the refining process.)

Several waste products are produced by the sugar industry in raw sugar processing – one was bagasse, and the mills would flume it out of the mill and simply dump it in the ocean.

Later, some of the bagasse was made into canec. In 1929, Hawaiian Cellulose Ltd, a subsidiary of the Waiākea Mill Company applied for a patent for the manufacture of it. (County of Hawai‘i) They made ‘canec.’

Canec was originally the brand name for pressed fiber board made by Hawaiian Cane Products, Ltd., but it has become commonly used to refer to all pressed board of this type.

Also, later, “After passing through the last mill, as much cane pulp (bagasse) as needed is fed into the mill fireroom for use as fuel.” (EPA) The bagasse was pelletized and fueled the boiler.

In 1906, the California and Hawaiian Sugar Refining Company (C&H) began refining pure cane sugar in the small town of Crockett, California, near San Francisco. As cargo ships offloaded raw cane sugar from the Hawaiian Islands, the refinery employed 490 people and produced 67,000 tons of refined cane sugar.

August 3, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Explorers and Traders … the Pacific and Hawai‘i

The word ‘spice’ is derived from the Latin ‘species’, or ‘special wares’, and refers to an item of special value, as opposed to ordinary articles of trade. Spices were highly valued because, as well as being used in cooking, many had ritual, religious or medical uses.

They were of high value because of their relative geographical scarcity. Spices could only be grown in the tropical East; South Asia served as a major source of spices – in the South of China, Indonesia, as well as in Southern India and Sri Lanka.

Among the most widespread were the spices cinnamon, pepper, clove, nutmeg, and mace. (Hancock) Some spices, such as cloves and nutmeg, grew nowhere else in the world.

The spice trade was conducted mostly by camel caravans over land routes (known as the Silk Roads). The Silk Roads were important routes connecting Asia with the Mediterranean world, including North Africa and Europe. (Deepanjana, UNESCO)

From as early as 2000 BC, spices, such as cinnamon from Sri Lanka and cassia from China, were exported along the Silk Road as far west as the Arabian Peninsula and the Iranian Plateau. Other goods were also exchanged/traded – cargoes from China included ivory, silk, porcelain, metals and gemstones. (Deepanjana, UNESCO)

Later, Spice Routes were established; these were the name given to the network of sea routes that linked the East with the West. The journey of the goods between all these links in the chain is called a trade route (the word ‘trade’ derives from a term meaning a track or course).

One of the major motivating factors in the European Age of Exploration was the search for direct access to the highly lucrative Eastern spice trade.

in 1513, a Spanish captain, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, went into the interior of Darien (Panama). On September 24, 1513, Balboa sighted a new ocean. He called it the Mar del Sur, or ‘sea of the south’ (South Sea); later (1520), Ferdinand Magellan called it the Mare Pacificum, or Pacific Ocean.

The accounts of the first explorers revealed the potential for high-value commodity exchange, and voyages of exploration were soon followed by those of spice traders. (BOEM)

From 1500 AD onward, first Portugal, and then other European powers, attempted to control the spice trade, the ports which marketed spices, and eventually the territories which grew them. (Cartwright)

The Portuguese established trading posts in China at Macau in 1513, in Timor in 1515, and finally at Nagasaki, Japan in 1543. Within the next decades, Dutch competitors followed the Portuguese across the Indian Ocean and into Southeast Asia. (BOEM)

Then came the Spanish … on November 28 1520, Spaniard Fernao de Magalhais (Ferdinand Magellan) entered the eastern Pacific from the opposite direction, by way of the tip of South America, discovering the strait that now bears his name, and thereby opened up to Spain the possibility of an alternative route between Europe and the spices of the Orient.” (Lloyd)

Magellan crossed the ocean to the Philippines, which he named Las Islas Filipinas in honor of the Spanish king, Felipe. (Spate) The Spanish ultimately prevailed against other European competition in terms of Pacific trade. They did this through the founding of their outpost at Manila (Philippines) in 1571 and the establishment of regular transpacific Manila Galleon voyages.

Once a year, gold and silver were transported west from Acapulco to Manila in exchange spices (pepper, clove and cinnamon), porcelain, ivory, lacquer and elaborate fabrics (silk, velvet, satin), collected from both the Spice Islands (Moluccas, Indonesia) and the Asian Pacific coast.

The Pacific fur trade was pioneered by the Russians, working east from Kamchatka along the Aleutian Islands to the southern coast of Alaska. (ESDAW)

Originally, Russia exported raw furs, consisting in most cases of the pelts of martens, beavers, wolves, foxes, squirrels, and hares. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Russians began to settle in Siberia, a region rich in many mammal fur species, such as Arctic fox, lynx, sable, sea otter and stoat (ermine).

it was the French and British who dominated Pacific exploration in the eighteenth century. Beginning in the mid-1700s, the rival nations began to send out scientific expeditions to explore and chart the islands of the Pacific.

British explorers included Samuel Wallis (1767–68) and Philip Carteret (1767–68). But by far the most wide-ranging and accomplished of the eighteenth-century explorers was the Englishman Captain James Cook, who made three separate voyages to the Pacific in 1768-71, 1772-75, and 1776-80. (Kjellgren, MetMuseum)

After Cook was killed in Hawai‘i, one of his officers – and later a Captain – George Vancouver continued to explore and chart the Northwest Coast. Commercial traders soon followed, exchanging copper, weapons, liquor, and varied goods for sea otter pelts. (Barbour)

Following Cook’s ‘discovery’ of the opportunities in the fur trade, the North American maritime fur trade became the earliest global economic enterprise. Cook’s ‘discovery’ resulted in the British and then the Americans participating in the trade.

Following the American Revolution, the new nation needed money and a vital surge in trade. In 1787, two ships (Columbia, captained by John Kendrick, and Lady Washington, captained by Robert Gray) left Boston on a mission around Cape Horn and into the Pacific Ocean. to establish new trade with China, settle an outpost on territory claimed by the Spanish, and find the legendary Northwest Passage.

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.

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 for refreshment and recreation.

As trade and commerce expanded across the Pacific, numerous countries were looking for faster passage and many looked to Nicaragua and Panama in Central America for possible dredging of a canal as a shorter, safer passage between the two Oceans.

Finally, in 1881, France started construction of a canal through the Panama isthmus. By 1899, after thousands of deaths (primarily due to yellow fever) and millions of dollars, they abandoned the project and sold their interest to the United States.

After Panamanian independence from Columbia in 1903, the US restarted construction of the canal in 1905. Finally, the first complete Panama Canal passage by a self-propelled, oceangoing vessel took place on January 7, 1914.

Later, when Navy Commander John Rodgers and his crew arrived in Hawaiʻi on September 10, 1925 on the first trans-Pacific air flight, they fueled the imaginations of Honolulu businessmen and government officials who dreamed of making Hawaiʻi the economic Crossroads of the Pacific, and saw commercial aviation as another road to that goal.

Two years later on March 21, 1927, Hawaii’s first airport was established in Honolulu and dedicated to Rodgers. 1959 brought two significant actions that shaped the present day make-up of Hawai‘i, (1) Statehood and (2) jet-liner service between the mainland US and Honolulu (Pan American Airways Boeing 707.)

Here is a link for more on Explorers and Traders: https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Explorers-and-Traders.pdf

July 25, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waikahalulu Falls

‘Pan-Pacific Union’ was the local expression of the larger ‘Hands-around-the-Pacific’ movement, which embraced all countries in and about the vast western ocean – the future theatre of the world’s greatest activities. (The Friend, May 1, 1918)

The projected calling of a Pan-Pacific conference to meet in Hawaiʻi, the establishment of a Pan-Pacific commercial college in Honolulu and the project of a Pan-Pacific peace exposition here after the war was launched by a number of influential business men. (Mid-Pacific Magazine, 1918)

A Pan-Pacific commercial college was considered one of the best means to bring Hawaiʻi into closer communion with the countries of the Far East while the exposition and general conference would create a sentiment in the countries of the Pacific to make the Pacific independent in its resources and make Hawaiʻi a real cross-road of the Pacific. (Oregon News, June 26, 1918)

Folks selected a site along the Nuʻuanu Stream, in the heart of Honolulu, near two waterfalls, as the nucleus of a Pan-Pacific Park; here all resident races of the Pacific might re-create their national life and customs.

It turns out the site was at the former home of the former Queen, Liliʻuokalani. Here, once stood the grass house of the parents of Hawaiʻi’s last Queen. As a child she played and bathed in the pool below the falls. (Some call it the Queen’s Bath.)

At first, the Japanese offered to make of Liliʻuokalani Gardens a bit of old Japan. With more land, they suggested different nations around the Great Ocean come for the 1920 Exposition. (Mid-Pacific Magazine, January 1917)

During initial discussions of the proposed Pan-Pacific Exposition came up, Mr Ishii announced that he would provide a Japanese tea house section that would be a credit and honor to his race in Hawaiʻi.

In the garden, and tea houses, there should be no intoxicants of any kind, and only the real lovers of simple pleasures, and those who enjoy the beautiful in nature, would be welcomed. (Mid-Pacific Magazine, August 1918)

Ishii’s Garden in Pan-Pacific Park, a bit of old Japan in Hawaii, was looked upon as one of the most charming spots in Honolulu. The entire grounds were formerly known as Yoraku-en—the Pan-Pacific tea garden.

The garden was planted with Japanese grass, and the landscape gardening there is patterned after the Land of the Cherry Blossoms. Buildings, too, are designed along Japanese lines. It was Ishii’s plan to will the park and garden to the Pan-Pacific Union as its headquarters.

For ten years, Ishii has been improving these remarkable Japanese gardens. They adjoin the Liliʻuokalani Park, one of the most beautiful bits of landscape in Hawaii. The building of a native Hawaiian village is contemplated, adjoining both Liliʻuokalani and Ishii’s gardens, so that in time all may be thrown into one Pan-Pacific park.

Here, perhaps each Pacific race in Hawaiʻi may have its individual club house and grounds. Mr. Ishii is a public benefactor in pointing the way for better understanding and co-operation among the men of all races in Honolulu. (Pan-Pacific Union, March 1923)

Glance up the Nuʻuanu Stream, beneath the finest (and most forgotten) avenue of monkeypod trees in the Island. It was a bit of Japan at its fairest, and there, far up at the end of the arching of green, were two tumbling white waterfalls.

There are many beauty spots in Hawaiʻi, but none more beautiful than those that congregate about that section of the Nuʻuanu Stream, flowing through Honolulu, where it was proposed to hold the Pan-Pacific Peace Exposition after World War I.

Their philosophy was, work hard enough and long enough for the thing you want, and you will get it; and so any good idea may be made to grow into a reality.” (Mid-Pacific Magazine, August 1918)

Unfortunately, there are no records of the Pan-Pacific Union holding the exposition (like a World’s Fair) in Honolulu. The City later acquired the Liliʻuokalani Park – it’s now a small, streamside passive park. Waikahalulu Falls are still there, too.

The City notes, portions of this garden were once the property and favorite picnic grounds of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaiʻi. She later donated her land to the City and County of Honolulu to be used for the public’s enjoyment. This developing garden is devoted to native Hawaiian plants. (C&C)

Records do note that the Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exposition was a world’s fair held in Japan from March 15 to May 31, 1937.

It was intended to promote industry, transportation, education, science, construction, architecture, social welfare, tourism, fine arts and crafts. The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) erupted only two months after the Exposition closed.

Queen-Liliuokalani-Gardens

Waikahalulu-Falls

Waikahalulu-Falls-HonoluluBotanicalGardens

Waikahalulu-Falls-arjunaheim

Waikahalulu_Falls-HonoluluBotanicalGardens

Lili’uokalani_Botanical_Garden

Waikahalulu_Falls

Part of Ishii’s Pan-Pacific Gardens-Pan-Pacific Union March 1923

Main tower at the Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exposition-1937

July 23, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

King’s Daughters Home

A small number of women banded together as a King’s Daughters’ Circle for the purpose of learning more how to care for others, taking the motto, ‘Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.’

At the time, Honolulu had no haven for friendless and lonely old persons who were aging. Then, the distress of two such old ladies inspired the King’s Daughters with the determination to meet this need.

The aim was to comfort and care for those in need, just as one would care for a relative or friend. “No efforts are spared in removing all trace of the institution from this home, where each person is given a pleasant, private room in which to spend declining years among little, treasured possessions.” (Honolulu Star-bulletin, April 9, 1914)

On July 15, 1910, they rented and furnished a house in Makiki and called it the King’s Daughters’ Home.

The aim of the Circle was first “to furnish a genuine home to all those in need because of age or weakness, and second, to furnish a Christian home for persons in middle life or past who receive but a trifle for their labor and are unable to pay the usual boarding-house rates”.

“(L)astly, (the goal was) to furnish for convalescents released from the care of hospital and physician, without a home or means and unable to work for a while, a place where they may go and have loving care for a few weeks and someone to help nurse them back to strength. (Honolulu Times, December 1, 1910)

“Viewed from a progressive standpoint, it may be said that there is scarcely a county in the United States which has not its home for old people without means. Honolulu has its Lunalilo Home for aged Hawaiians.”

“There are homes for the people of other races and hospitals for the white plague sufferers and those afflicted with other ills, but nowhere in this city of wealth is there a place where an aged Anglo-Saxon, whose younger days have been spent in faithful service, can enter and say, ‘This is my home.’” (Thrum)

The first home “installed these two dear old ladies with a matron to care for them. Later more women and some men were joined to the little family, the house was enlarged to meet the increasing demands for more accommodations”.

“(A)ssistants were engaged, and the work grew steadily, until now several small cottages have been added to the establishment, Yet, with these added facilities, the Old Folks’ Homes is taxed to capacity”. (Honolulu Star-bulletin, April 9, 1914)

“(T)here are scores of working women, very worthy women, Christian women, employed on meager salaries, by the week or by the day or the month, and that can afford to pay a small part only for room and meals. It is really hard, very hard, for them to make that little income meet the demands of food and raiment (clothing.”)

“Often they are constrained to live in the most frugal manner as to lodging and table board. But, if there can be a Home, plain, sweet, neat, with a good nourishing menu, three times a day, what a blessing!” (Honolulu Times, December 1, 1910)

“No sooner was the first home secured and opened with furnishings befitting the needs of those in the afternoon of life who had seen better days, but what its capacity was taxed, and from that time … there have been applicants for admission kept on the waiting list owing to its limited accommodations”.

“Thus from its inception, almost, has the need of enlargement been insistent and has sorely taxed the handful of promoters to meet this want of the community.” (Thrum)

“The King’s Daughters’ Circle has undertaken the work which the community has so far omitted. It has done what it could with limited means, secured from private sources, and now feels justified in asking the aid of the community for a building enterprise … like the magnificent YMCA structure”.

“Confident that their trust in this appeal is not misplaced, the organization of King’s Daughters engaged Mr HL Kerr, an architect who has designed a number of the finest buildings in the city, to draw plans for an Old People’s Home, to be erected on the Kaimuki site which the organization now owns”.

“The building as designed will afford ample and comfortable housing for fifty (occupants,) with additional quarters for nurses and other attaches of the institution. The structure as planned has all the essential provisions for insuring comfort to the (occupants,) and at the same time is artistic in design, supplying an edifice which, from an architectural point of view, will prove a credit to the city and a monument to the progressive spirit of the community.”

“The general idea of the architect has been to give a home effect inside and out, and to provide a building which will insure a maximum of comfort and convenience with a minimum of expenditure for its economical maintenance. The lanais and veranda are as generous in size as they are essential.”

“The dining hall and dining lanai may be operated separately or thrown together as desired, and the rooms which will be for general use are centrally located in order to be of the greatest service to all. … The rooms are large and airy, each provided with a generous clothes press, and there are ample toilet facilities included.”

“The upper floor is designed primarily for the use of the caretakers and assistants, and will also provide room for those among the old people who are able to mount the easy stairway.”

“One feature of the plans to which the attention of contributors is particularly called, is that it may be constructed in five parts or wings grouped about a central building, permitting any one person or group of persons who may so desire to build a wing as a memorial.” (Thrum)

There is a sad side to this story … reported in the Hawaiian Gazette, February 6, 1912. It relates to Mrs Margaret Jerome Healy and her friend Mrs Elisabeth Stevenson; both lived in the King’s Daughters Home.

Unfortunately Healy passed away.

“The old ladies of the home were all anxious to attend the funeral of their late companion, who was a general favorite among them … The superintendent demurred but it was finally decide that a refusal would result in unnecessary grievings and the permission was granted.”

“The aged women gathered about as the body was lowered and reverently bowed their heads as the last words of the service were spoken. Most of them were crying quietly and the moment, always so sadly dramatic, was doubly tense to those who felt the severing of the ties so poignantly.”

“Mrs. Stevenson’s heart, which has been weak, was unable to stand the tension of emotion and dropped quietly, the old lady sinking to the ground amidst her companions and peacefully passing across the borders to join her friend.”

Stevenson (who had been a nurse for the greater part of her life) died “before the open grave as the body of her departed friend was laid to rest.” (Hawaiian Gazette, February 6, 1912)

“They were two woman who shared the bonds of aloha in their last days of their lives on this earth, and they left together to the other side, without one feeling sadness for the other in one dying before the other, and one being left behind in this world grieving.” (Kuokoa, February 9, 1912) The King’s Daughters Home closed in 1978.

July 19, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ranch House

This place had a lot of owners and went by a lot of names; it even had two different street addresses (it stayed in the same place, but it is not clear when or why the address changed).

It started with Robert Hind and his dairy operation. While it didn’t start with that name, more often than not it was called some derivation of the Ranch House. The structure was remodeled at least twice (1951 and 1971).

In 1918 Robert Hind started Kapahulu Dairy. (Kelly) In 1924, Hind purchased 2,090-acres and established the Hind-Clarke Dairy with John K Clarke. “Rancher and Cattleman To Import 100 Pure Bred Guernseys At Once Will Be Added To Stock Ready for Opening of Hind-Clarke Dairy”

“One hundred pure bred Guernsey milch cows for the Hind-Clarke dairy, which is to be opened for business in the Waialae district later in the summer, will arrive from San Francisco June 30, announces Robert Hind, rancher and dairyman, who returned from the mainland on the steamer Wilhelmina Tuesday.”

“‘These cows will produce the highest quality of milk, which will be of a rich color and of a taste for which the Guernsey is famous. The animals have the best kind of pedigrees and would be valuable additions to any dairy.’”

“The dairy already has 150 Holstein cows, which produce milk In quantity, and the coming herd will increase his herd to at least 250 milk producers.” (Star Bulletin, June 10, 1925)

The Hind-Clarke Dairy was a favored stop along the road, as noted in a 1930 visitor’s guide … “The Hind-Clarke Dairy, a short way ahead and to our left with a large sign over the entrance, is not to be passed unnoticed.”

“The dairy is a model of its kind and well affords an opportunity to see dairying in its most scientific form. The cottage cheese on sale is, perhaps, the most delicious you have ever tasted.” (Cultural Surveys)

“And Hind-Clarke Dairy had this drive-in where they had their own ice cream parlor [Hind-Clarke Drive Inn]. And later on it got to be known as M’s Ranch House.” (‘M’ referencing Mona Hind Holmes, Robert’s daughter.)

“Until only recently it was still there, and they finally closed down. But it started out as a Hind-Clarke Dairy ice cream parlor, but people drove in there to buy ice cream.” (Yamaguchi Oral History)

The Hind Clarke Dairy operation occupied the area presently occupied by the ‘Āina Haina Shopping Center and ‘Āina Haina Elementary School.

It stretched into the valley and over the ridge (now the Hawaii Loa Ridge subdivision). Hind Clark Dairy also had a small zoo near the library site today; there was a zebra in a pen. (Archaeological Consultants)

The former cattle pasture was subdivided into lots to form a new residential community called ‘Āina Haina (which means “Hind’s land”).

A little-known fact, lost (for the most part) to history, is that the Hind-Clarke Drive Inn became the Six Star Drive Inn briefly (around 1945) before coming M’s Ranch House. (Darren Conley)

A September 1, 1945 advertisement in the Star Bulletin stated, “Opening Today the Six Star Drive-in, Fountain Service, Sandwiches. A La Carte Menus, Open Daily… 5202 Kalanianaole Highway. Near the Hind-Clarke Dairy Under the management of Mona Hind and Harry Shingle”.

However, Harry’s participation soon ended with an announcement, “Notice is herby given that Harry Kusuhara, also known as Harry Shingle, is no longer connected with the Six Star Drive Inn located at 5202 Kalanianaole Highway … I have returned to General Contracting and Catering as of the 15^th day of January 1946.” (SB, Jan 25, 1946)

Then, “Notice is hereby given that on the 16^th of May, 1947, Mona Hind Holmes and Charles W Lucas Jr, entered into a copartnership doing business under the name of The Ranch House, operating, maintaining and conducting a restaurant at 5202 Kalanianaole Highway, Honolulu, TH.” (Advertiser, May 17, 1947)

“Originally opened as the ice cream drive-inn for the Hind-Clarke Dairy and creamery, it was converted into a full service dining restaurant after the Dairy was sold in 1946, and the valley was subdivided into residential lots.”

“We moved into Aina Haina in 1949, and as a child growing up, our favorite thing was to play ‘cowboys’. We could choose between riding our bikes over to Niu Valley and feeding Lani Moo in her corral, or riding our bikes to M’s Ranch House, and play in the covered wagon.” (Navas, Territorial Airwaves)

In 1971, the restaurant was “renewed” and “has a new look so different and so handsome that we hasten to reassure its family of customers that inside the doors, the food, the services, the hospitality, and the informality are all as they were before – only nicer.”

The Ranch House was “completely redecorated and refurbished … with a new roof line new paint and signs – but still the basically unchanged ‘dining home’ of thousands of Island families … [and] prices did not go up after all the remodeling and redecorating.” (SB, Jan 10, 1971)

The Ranch House was demolished in 1991, and Longs Drugs was built and still occupies the site; the ice cream parlor, drive In, fountain, Alibi Cocktail Room, hearty meals, live music entertainment … and covered wagon are now gone.