General | Page 209 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 17, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Train Terminal, Depot

Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Dillingham’s OR&L company, created in 1889, changed the landscape of west Honolulu. Its first train depot was created between a fishpond and North King Street, next to Prison Road, later renamed Iwilei Road.

The first section of track extended only as far as Aiea, but by the 1920s, tracks had been laid all over the island. The train was the primary mode of transportation. (Burlingame)

“Among the most important works now in progress of rapid construction, is the Oahu Railway to Pearl Harbor, which is already approaching completion, so far as grading is concerned.”

“Eleven miles of this line will have the grading completed in two weeks; and of this length ten miles are already finished. The material for the bridges is already on the ground, and the work of driving the piles has been begun at the larger estuaries of Kalihi and Moanalua.”

“A few of the bridges on this line will be of considerable length; but, with the present energy being displayed only a short time will elapse before the gaps in the line will all disappear.”

“Many of the smaller bridges and culverts have been already built. There will be altogether twenty bridges between Honolulu and Ewa, of various lengths—from 16 to 300 feet, with an aggregate length of 1250 feet.”

“Plans have been approved by which the main depot will be placed 180 feet from King street in what is now a fish-pond dividing Oahu prison from the royal stables.”

“A large portion, if not all of this extensive fish-pond will be filled in without delay, and this substantial and eligible building ground, artificially firmed, will become of great value by close proximity to the main depot buildings.”

“The depot itself will be of imposing size and made as ornamental in appearance as convenience and traffic requirements will allow. The grading of the whole division of this line, twelve miles, will be completed within the next month; and the laying of the rails will commence immediately upon their arrival by the bank Deutschland now nearly due from Germany.”

“The progress of this important work has been so rapid during the month of July that we give it first place among works in progress. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 27, 1889)

The inauguration of the OR&L rail service was November 16, 1889. (LOC)Eventually, the railroad ran west out of Honolulu to Waianae, around Kaena Point and on to Kahuku, and is significant in the development of the sugar industry on the island of Oahu.

As a result of the development of this rail line the lands of western and northern Oahu were able to be opened for the cultivation of sugar, with plantations started at Ewa, Waipahu, Waianae, Waialua, Kahuku and other areas. Besides freight, the OR&L also provided plantation workers with easy access to Honolulu. (NPS)

In 1924-1925, a new Depot was constructed to replace an earlier 1889 wooden terminal building, and was the main Honolulu rail terminal for OR&L’s passenger operations.

The building was designed by local architect Guy N. Rothwell. The contract to erect the terminal was officially given to the Hawaiian Contracting Company (a company that was owned by the Dillingham family), though much of the work was performed by OR&L’s in-house construction crews.

Upon completion, the building had dual functions, with the 2nd floor providing offices for the company’s daily railroad operations, and the 1st floor accommodating passengers. The 1st floor layout included a porte-cochere, a ticket office and lobby with a restaurant and bar, as well as a news stand.

The offices upstairs were occupied by OR&L’s president, general manager, superintendent and treasurer, as well as the station’s dispatcher.

Both floors also included spacious restrooms for travelers and employees. As soon as the building was completed, an extension was constructed on the north side, to accommodate the company’s growing freight department.

The railroad prospered until the 1930s when the advent of improved roadways led to its decline. The railway continued in operation through World War II, but in 1947 all operations outside of Honolulu were abandoned. (NPS)

The company continued to use Depot building as a terminal well after rail passenger operations ceased at the end of 1947. The property was acquired by the State of Hawaii in 1961. After OR&L moved off the premises eighteen months later the building was used as office space.

A 1975 renovation completely reconfigured the interior of the building for office use, and an elevator and expanded stairwell were added at an unknown date. Various state organizations have occupied the offices, with the current users being the Division of Accounting and General Services, Department of Human Services in the terminal building. (HABS)

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First day of operation Nov 16, 1889.

OR&L Railroad Depot 1890

OR&L Honolulu Depot-1890

OR&L Railway Depot

OR&L Railroad Yard, November 1941

OR&L Railroad Depot

OR&L Railroad Station 1890

OR&L Honolulu Terminal Roundhouse-Adv

OR&L Honolulu Depot-1914

OR&L Honolulu Depot_1890

OR&L Alakea Street Honolulu

OR&L Honolulu

OR&L Honolulu Depot-1901

OR&L Station 325 N. King St. Honolulu, late 1940s

OR&L-Iwilei-map

OR&L-Oahu-Map

OR&L-Map

May 16, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Timeline Tuesday … 1980s

Today’s ‘Timeline Tuesday’ takes us through the 1980s – bombing halted at Kaho‘olawe, Alexander Young Building demolished, enactment of State Water Code and over 1,000 ancient human remains discovered on land being developed by the Ritz-Carlton on Maui. We look at what was happening in Hawai‘i during this time period and what else was happening around the rest of the world.

A Comparative Timeline illustrates the events with images and short phrases. This helps us to get a better context on what was happening in Hawai‘i versus the rest of the world. I prepared these a few years ago for a planning project. (Ultimately, they never got used for the project, but I thought they might be on interest to others.)

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May 14, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

‘Ūkēkē

“While the ‘ūkēkē was used to accompany the mele and the oli, its chief employment was in serenading and serving the young folk in breathing their extemporized songs and uttering their love-talk— hoipoipo.”

“By using a peculiar lingo or secret talk of their own invention, two lovers could hold private conversation in public and pour their loves and longings into each other’s ears without fear of detection”. (Emerson)

“The ūkēkē was used for amusement as well as for love making and by husbands and wives as well as by those who had illicit love affairs. The tones, though faint, were sufficiently strong to be heard either side of a wall of a grass house.” (Roberts)

“This display of ingenuity has been the occasion for outpouring many vials of wrath upon the sinful ‘ūkēkē.”

“The ‘ūkēkē, the one Hawaiian instrument of its class, is a mere strip of wood bent into the shape of a bow that its elastic force may keep tense the strings that are stretched upon it.”

“These strings, three in number, were originally of sinnet, later after the arrival of the white man, of horsehair. At the present time it is the fashion to use the ordinary gut designed for the violin or the taro-patch guitar.”

“Every ‘ūkēkē seen followed closely a conventional pattern, which argues for the instrument a historic age sufficient to have gathered about itself some degree of traditional reverence”. (Emerson)

Kauila wood was almost universally agreed to be the best wood to make the ‘ūkēkē (however, hau, ʻiliahi (sandalwood,) and other woods were used. Some suggest koa was too firm to make the ‘bow.’) (Roberts)

“One end of the stick is notched or provided with holes to hold the strings, while the other end is wrought into a conventional figure resembling the tail of a fish and serves as an attachment about which to wind the free ends of the strings.”

“No ‘ūkēkē seen by the author was furnished with pins, pegs, or any similar device to facilitate tuning. Nevertheless, the musician does tune his ‘ūkēkē, as the writer can testify from his own observation.” (Emerson)

“The strings of this ‘ūkēkē … are tuned to ē, to b and to d̄. These three strings are struck nearly simultaneously, but the sound being very feeble …”

“… it is only the first which, receiving the sharp impact of the blow, gives out enough volume to make a decided impression.” (Elsner; Emerson)

“When asked to give a sample of his playing on the ‘ūkēkē, he first gave heed to his instrument as if testing whether it was in tune. “

“He was evidently dissatisfied and pulled at one string as if to loosen it; then, pressing one end of the bow against his lips, he talked to it in a singing tone, at the same time plucking the strings with a delicate rib of grass. The effect was most pleasing.”

“The open cavity of the mouth, acting as a resonator, reenforced the sounds and gave them a volume and dignity that was a revelation. The lifeless strings allied themselves to a human voice and became animated by a living soul.” (Emerson)

“There was some stopping of the strings with the fingers, but very little … (u)sually the player struck but one string at a time, alternating between (the strings,) thus producing a little tune.”

“(A)lthough only one was struck, the other string would vibrate in sympathy, so that without the closest attention to the movements of the player’s hand it was most difficult to tell whether it, too, was being struck.” (Roberts)

“Experiment with the ūkēkē impresses one with the wonderful change in the tone of the instrument that takes place when its lifeless strings are brought into close relation with the cavity of the mouth.”

“Let anyone having normal organs of speech contract his lips into the shape of an O, make his cheeks tense, and then, with the pulp of his finger as a plectrum, slap the center of his cheek and mark the tone that is produced.”

“Practice will soon enable him to render a full octave with fair accuracy and to perform a simple melody that shall be recognizable at a short distance. The power and range thus acquired will, of course, be limited by the skill of the operator.”

Mahi La Pierre and the Ūkēkē:

“One secret of the performance lies in a proper management of the tongue. This function of the mouth to serve as a resonant cavity for a musical instrument is familiarly illustrated in the Jew’s-harp.” (Emerson)

However, the ūkēkē was not a Hawaiian Jew’s Harp; the Jew’s Harp is structurally different, with a vibrating tongue fastened to on end of the body and free from the other. (Roberts)

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Ukeke-james-temple

Ukeke maker Mahi La Pierre plays the Hawaiian musical instrument-StarAdv

Ukeke-StarAdv

Ukeke-HPR

Sketch of Ukeke Stems-Roberts

Ukeke-Tunes-Roberts

May 11, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hui Nalu

When Duke Kahanamoku, Kenneth Winter and William ‘Knute’ Cottrell decided to form a boat club, one of the names they initially came up with for it was the ‘Very Lazy Surfers.’ They later settled on ‘Hui Nalu’ (the club of the waves, or surf club.) (Davis)

The club was loosely organized in 1905 and officially formed in 1911. (Walker) (Others suggest it was formed in 1908.) Based at the Moana Hotel in Waikiki, swimming was the primary activity of the club in the early years; it expanded into surfing and canoe paddling.

They met daily under the hau tree near the Moana Hotel and used the hotel’s basement bathroom for a changing room. They decided that dues were one dollar per year. ‘It was a poor man’s club, but it was made up of dedicated surfers.’ (Kahanamoku; Davis) Membership was by election.

(Founded before (1908,) Outrigger Canoe Club had previously snubbed Duke Kahanamoku, but later asked him to join. He accepted the invitation in large part because his good friend, George ‘Dad’ Center.) (Davis)

(Outrigger, the world’s oldest surfing organization, was a social club, as well as an athletic club; membership was almost entirely foreign-born haole, or white, and the ranks contained an ever-growing number of nonathletic Honolulu businessmen.)

Composed primarily of surfers of full or partial Hawaiian blood. Hui Nalu was a longtime rival to the 1908-formed Outrigger Canoe Club, the world’s oldest surfing organization.

The Outrigger was a social club as well as an athletic club; membership was almost entirely foreign-born haole, or white, and the ranks contained an ever-growing number of nonathletic Honolulu businessmen. Membership to Hui Nalu, in contrast, was by election, and the club, while social in its own way, was for athletes only. (Walker)

In 1915, Hui Nalu surfers opened lucrative beach concession businesses in Waikīkī. Through these concessions, Hui Nalu surfers found regular and profitable work and became known as Waikīkī beachboys.

The beachboys were lifeguards, bodyguards, instructors, entertainers, and tour guides for visitors in Waikīkī. For a relatively high price, they took customers out into their Waikīkī surf to ride waves on canoes and surfboards.

One beachboy recalled, “[You] could make as much as five dollars a day. Oh, boy, was that big money. . . . We go out and catch three waves. But we fill the boat up with as much as six paying customers. Six dollars!”

By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the beachboy concession evolved into a bigger business, catering to higher-paying customers, as some beachboys became constant companions/tour guides for visiting families and made very good money.

Louis Kahanamoku explained, “Us boys would go down the ship. And we’d buy leis for them. . . . We come out of there, twenty, thirty, forty bucks by the time we got out”. (Walker)

By the end of 1946, the two main original Waikiki surf clubs had changed considerably. The native Hui Nalu had limited its activities mostly to outrigger canoe racing.

The haole-influenced Outrigger Canoe Club had become more of an exclusive prestige-type establishment, “with a wide range of social and athletic interests.”

So, in 1947, the Waikiki Surf Club was formed for the same reasons that the other two had originally been put together. “Its purpose,” wrote surfing historian Ben Finney, “was to promote surfing as well as other Hawaiian water sports.”

“It provided board lockers and clothes changing facilities near the beach, for anyone who could pay the small initiation fee and monthly dues.” (Ian Lind)

Today, members of Hui Nalu O Hawai‘i share the vision ‘To come together as a family who shares and cares’ and mission ‘To promote and provide educational and personal achievement opportunities which strengthen family, community and individual relationships’.

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Hui_Nalu-shirt image

Hui Nalu-1915

Hui Nalu-1920

Kahanamoku_and_the_Hui_Nalu_Club

Kahanamoku Brothers

Hui Nalu-trophies

Hui Nalu Cofounder Dude Miller-1921

May 10, 2017 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Cannery

French confectioner, Nicholas Appert, published the methods for preserving meats, vegetables, and fruits in glass jars in 1810. He had discovered that the application of heat to food in sealed glass bottles preserved the food from deterioration.

A British patent on the preservation of foods in tinplated cans and glass jars was issued to Peter Durand, a colleague of Appert, in 1810 and gave rise to the name ‘canning.’

Canning is the process in which foods are placed in jars or cans and heated to a temperature that destroys microorganisms and inactivates enzymes. This heating and later cooling forms a vacuum seal. The vacuum seal prevents other microorganisms from recontaminating the food within the jar or can. (Nummer)

A canning industry was established in Baltimore in 1819 and by 1850, five canning companies existed that mainly processed oysters. However, until relatively late in the 19th century, canned commodities remained beyond the reach of all but the wealthy and government troops on campaigns, ie the Civil War.

Baltimore became the canning center of America. Pineapple, initially imported from the Bahamas and later also from Cuba, was first canned there in 1865.

The fruits were of poor quality because they were picked green to reduce rotting during the 25- to 30-day sailing trip from the Bahamas. However, green pineapples “degreen,” but the quality and flavor only diminish with storage time.

Initially, the Baltimore pineapple canning industry was small because all work was done by hand. Machinery developed around 1870 to 1900 that could core, slice, and shred pineapples helped the industry to grow.

The ring-shaped slices so characteristic of premium canned pineapple originated in the Baltimore canneries and mechanical slicers were particularly popular with canners. (Bartholomew)

The earliest record of pineapple being canned in Hawaii was when the Kona Fruit Preserving Co., founded in 1882 in North Kona by John Douglas Ackerman and Waldemar Muller, sent samples of canned pineapple to Honolulu.

The fruit was reported to be of excellent flavor. However, the business apparently was unprofitable and only survived a few months.

The basis for the modern Hawaii pineapple canning industry was begun when John Kidwell, a trained horticulturist, arrived in Honolulu from San Francisco in 1882 and established a nursery in Manoa Valley.

Kidwell was encouraged by Charles Henson, a local horticulturist and fruit broker, to grow pineapples because he liked to include a few fresh pineapples in his banana shipments to the U.S. mainland.

In 1885, Kidwell started a pineapple farm with locally available plants, but their fruit was of poor quality. That prompted him to search for better cultivars.

A report in The Florida Agriculturist about ‘Smooth Cayenne’, a pre-Columbian cultivar first collected in French Guyana, prompted the importation of 12 plants. ‘Smooth Cayenne’ proved to be the best to grow and can.

The “development of the (Hawaiian) pineapple industry is founded on his selection of the Smooth Cayenne variety and on his conviction that the future lay in the canned product, rather than in shipping the fruit in the green state.” (Canning Trade; Hawkins)

The commercial Hawaiian pineapple canning industry began in 1889 when Kidwell’s business associate, John Emmeluth, a Honolulu hardware merchant and plumber, produced commercial quantities of canned pineapple.

Emmeluth refined his pineapple canning process between 1889 and 1891, and around 1891 packed and shipped 50 dozen cans of pineapple to Boston, 80 dozen to New York, and 250 dozen to San Francisco.

The test product was well received, but the profit margin was slim and he lost money because of the 35% duty on processed fruit imports to the United States. Kidwell and Emmeluth established the Hawaii Fruit and Packing Company in 1892 and built a small cannery.

The business was closed and the cannery was sold to the Pearl City Fruit Company after the 1898 season because the crushing tariffs and high shipping costs made the venture unprofitable. (Bartholomew)

One of the last laws passed by the Legislative Assembly before the overthrow had been an act to encourage the cultivation, canning, and preserving of pineapples in an attempt to diversify the economy away from sugar.

For a period of ten years after 1892, all tools, machinery, appliances, buildings, and all other personal property used in the cultivation, canning, or preserving of pineapples and held for export had been exempted from all taxes.

Furthermore, all tools, machinery, or appliances to be used exclusively in canning or preserving pineapples for export, or for the manufacture of containers for the same, and also all containers for use in connection therewith and the material for making them, could be imported into Hawai’i free of duty for ten years.

Kidwell was appointed the manager of the Hawaiian Fruit & Packing Company. The company’s cannery eventually had a capacity of ten thousand cans per day.

According to Kidwell, he received testimony from his customers that no other canned pineapples put on the American market came near to his in quality. (Hawkins)

In 1893 there were 13 pineapple growers, mostly on Oahu, with almost 400,000 plants in the ground and most fruits went to the fresh market. In 1897, almost 158,000 fruits were exported to the U.S. mainland. Production declined after 1897 and by 1901 no data on pineapple fresh fruit exports were collected.

Several events occurred in 1898 that facilitated the development of the new pineapple canning industry. First, the annexation of Hawaii in that year resulted in the revocation of the 35% duty on Hawaiian canned pineapple.

Second, the Republic of Hawaii legislature passed a law that made some 1,300 acres of government land near Wahiawa available for homesteading once a pasture lease expired.

In addition, Byron O Clark, Territorial Commissioner of the Board of Agriculture and Forestry, helped bring 13 southern California families to Wahiawa to homestead the land made available under the new law.

These early migrants and James Dole, who arrived in 1899, formed the nucleus of what would eventually become the largest pineapple industry in the world. (Lots of information here is from Bartholomew, Hawkins.)

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