Prominent People | Page 4 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

August 26, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Schoenberg

“To the Emigrants for the Sandwich Islands … Contracts with those who will go to the Sandwich Islands, are drawn up and signed on Wednesday, Sept. 23, and the following days at the office of Hans P. Faye, at Drammen from 11 to 3 o’clock. The parties must be provided with good recommendations, and attestations for good and faultless behaviour.”

“Parties under obligation of military service, must bring release from service. Signature of minors must, to be valid, be confirmed by guardian.”

“The conditions are now regulated, and thus fixed: laborers over 20 years, 9 dollars; under 20 years, somewhat less, per month, with free board, or board-money and free lodgings, families may bring two children with them. Free passage and board, which is not to be worked out afterwards. … Chr. L’Orange, Agent for the Hawaiian Bureau of Immigration, Sandwich Islands” (PCA, Oct 21, 1882)

“There were about 600 Norwegians who emigrated to Hawaii, the main harbor for this organized emigration was Drammen. It was planned and executed by Hans L’Orange. L’Orange was commissioned by the king of Hawaii (King Kalakaua) to bring the Norwegians to the island. L’Orange was a Norwegian plantation owner in the islands.” (Haakon Bjerke)

A plaque near Maalaea Maui states, “This monument commemorates the arrival of the Norwegian barque Beta which dropped anchor near this spot on February 18, 1881, and of her sister ship Musca, which arrived in Honolulu May 13, 1881.”

“They brought more than six hundred Norwegians, Swedes and Danes to work in the sugar cane fields and mills of the Hawaiian Kingdom – the first and only mass migration of Scandinavians to these islands.”

“For their contribution to the life of this land, as well as those of their countrymen who proceeded or followed, our mahalo and aloha. The Scandinavian Centennial Commission, February 14, 1981, the centennial date. This monument was restored in the year 2006, in celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Scandinavians arrival in Hawaii”.

“The Norwegians had signed a four-year contract as plantation workers. This experiment by having the Norwegians employed as plantation workers was not successful enterprise. The plantation owners soon found out they could not whip the Norwegians as they had previously done with the Asians. Soon, strikes flourished and the jails were filled up with Norwegians.”

“The Norwegian emigration to Hawaii was a failure, as soon as their four-years contract expired the majority of the Norwegians left for the US mainland to places like California, Minnesota and the Dakotas; there were only then a small number of Norwegians who remained in Hawaii.” (Haakon Bjerke)

But sugar laborers weren’t the only Norwegians to come to Hawai’i. “A long line of seafaring ancestors were responsible for the early call to the sea of Victor [Cotta] Schoenberg (born December 5, 1885, at Bergen, Norway; son of Fredrik Christian Torp and Edle Margarete (Holm-Brock) Schoenberg).” (Nellist and Siddall)

“At the completion of his education in the Hambro School and College and the Bergen Commercial College at Bergen, Norway, M. Schoenberg began his world travels [by way of England, Egypt, Siam and Hongkong, remaining in Hongkong until June, 1906] and reached Hawaii in Aug, 1906, as an officer on a Norwegian steamship. He remained here to accept a position in a mill at Makaweli, Kauai.”

“Later he removed to Waimea, Kauai, where he was acting postmaster for a short time. From 1907 to 1909 he was bookkeeper for the Lahaina branch of H. Hackfeld & Co., and for the next seven years was manager of the Lahaina National Bank, Lahaina, Maui, going to the Waipahu branch of the Bank of Hawaii, Ltd., in 1918, as manager and cashier, a position he still occupies.”

“Mr. Schoenberg has specialized in country and branch bank organization. He organized and developed the Pearl Harbor branch of the Bank of Hawaii, Ltd., in 1921, with a collection office at Aiea, which he managed for a year in conjunction with the Waipahu branch and a collection office at Wahiawa.”

In 1910 he married Jennie Wilhelmina Hansen and they have two sons, Erling (born in Wailuku July 2, 1911) and Eyvinn Schoenberg. (Nellist) Eyvinn was born and raised in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and began making model aircraft at age eleven while visiting San Leandro, California.

“On returning home to Hawaii, my room became my model shop, as I turned out all kinds of rubber-powered models, culminating in my building a successful flying Gas model ‘California Chief,’ powered with a Baby Cyclone engine, in 1939.”

“This lead to my interest in flying and I obtained a pilot’s license through the University of Hawaii’s CAAPT5 flight training course in 1940.” Schoenberg learned to fly a full-sized Piper Cub.

“Post war, living in Lima Peru, I built my first Radio Controlled model, a Walt Good ‘Rudder Bug’ design, with an English single-channel radio system and an S29 engine, with rudder only control. It flew beautifully!!”

“And while driving to the flying area 43 kilometers south of Lima, Peru, I saw the wonderful point break waves at Punta Hermosa, surfed there with my pal Hal McNicol, and changed Peruvian surfing from beach break to point break surfing thereafter …” (Schoenberg, Academy of Model Aeronautics)

Eyvinn’s son had an influence on music in the Islands. “I collaborated with Herb Ohta, Sr. (Ohta-San) on a number of songs over the years, beginning in the late 60s when I was a student at Punahou (class of 69).”

“This came about when a guest lecturer at a creative writing class mentioned that a local musician was looking for help with lyrics. That sounded interesting, so I met with Mr. Ohta at his practice studio and then went to see him perform at a club in Waikiki.”

“Initially, a song translated from French needed a little editing. Later, Ohta wrote original compositions that required lyrics. After I moved back to the mainland we continued working together by mail. He would send me sheet music, sometimes a cassette recording, or call and play a new tune over the phone.”

“Ohta was a terrific musician who could play the ukelele like a jazz guitar. Many of his recordings were instrumentals, although I still received credit as lyricist.” (The songs he collaborated with Ohta-san include, The Changing, Claustrophobia, Everything Is Real, I’m Going To Go, Love Can Be A Harmful Thing, More Than I Can Say, Sunshine, Wishes and You.)

“His music was very popular in Japan, where he was known as Ohta-San. For a while, I received annual printouts showing royalties earned, categorized in Japanese with amounts in Yen. A letter in English said they would hold onto the sum until it was enough to write a check.” (Victor (Vic) E Schoenberg)

That wasn’t the only musical Schoenberg. Folks might recall the Vaqueros that included Cotta Schoenberg (who played regularly at the Kāneʻohe Yacht Club). Back in the day, the Long House was available for periodic teen dances (hundreds of us packed the place.)

August 22, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Henrik Christian L’Orange

L’Orange is a Norwegian family of French origin. The family were Huguenots (Protestants), and after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, members of the family had to leave France.

The first known man of the family, Jean L’Orange, who according to tradition came from St.-Quentin in Gascogne , probably came to Copenhagen at the end of the 17th century. His son Johan Gerhard L’orange (1696–1772) came to Norway and settled in Vestfold. (Norwegian Encyclopedia)

Fast forward to the end of the American Civil War in 1865; emigration from Norway to the US increased rapidly. But there were some who chose other destinations.

In 1877, Hendrik Christian (Christian) L’Orange (born in Fredrikshald in 1843) married Caroline Faye (born in Drammen in 1856), daughter of merchant Hans Peter Faye and his wife Karen Sophie Knudsen in Drammen. (Emigrantforlaget)

Following their wedding Christian and Caroline sailed for the islands of Hawai‘i in 1877. Her cousin, Anton Faye, also sailed with them to Kauai in 1877. Caroline’s uncle, Valdemar Knudsen, had already settled there in 1856.

Knudsen, Faye and L’Orange got involved in the operation of a sugar plantation on Kauai. (Scandinavian Club of Hawai‘i) Knudsen had acquired a 30-year lease on crown lands in the Waimea district where he established a ranch. Using an old Hawaiian ditch at Waiele, he drained and reclaimed about 50 acres on which he and L‘Orange planted sugar cane in 1878. (HSPA)

In 1879 Christian purchased his own plantation on Maui. He named it Lilikoi. He later sold the plantation and moved to Kauai. There he became the director of a sugar plantation, which was also given the name Lilikoi. (Norwegian Heritage)

As early as July 7, 1878, Captain L’Orange proposed to the Bureau of Immigration of the Hawaiian Kingdom to bring Scandinavian laborers to the Islands. By mid-June of 1880 he was involved in plans to go to Norway for contract workers to fill the needs of plantations represented by the sugar factors, Castle and Cooke. (Satrum)

By July 20, 1880, he had received his letter of appointment as agent of the Bureau of Immigration, and a few weeks later was on his way to Norway with a letter of credit for $20,000 from the firm of Castle and Cooke for expenses and advances.

Captain L’Orange had Instructions to hire not more than 400 adult workers, in a ratio of 35 to 40 women to each 100 men. These people were to be of ‘proper class’ and good workers, and no family was to bring more than two children. (Satrum)

A long depression from the mid-1870s to the early 1890s hit the Norwegian economy severely. Signs of the stagnation could be found in the large-scale immigration from Norway to North America during the 1880s. In the long-run, immigration was basically a result of increased labor productivity in the primary sector, causing surplus labor to find jobs in the New World. (Grytten)

Thousands were leaving Norway for other lands. This occurred at a time when there was actually a demand for more farm laborers in Hawai‘i. These circumstances partially determined who would be in the mix of people signing contracts as Hawaiian plantation workers. (Satrum)

L’Orange placed an advertisement in Drammen, Norway newspapers, stating, in part, “To the Emigrants for the Sandwich Islands Contracts with those who will go to the Sandwich Islands, are drawn up and signed on Wednesday, Sept. 23 … The parties must be provided with good recommendations, and attestations for good and faultless behaviour.”

“The conditions are now regulated, and thus fixed: laborers over 20 years, 9 dollars; under 20 years, somewhat less, per month, with free board, or board-money and free lodgings, families may bring two children with them. Free passage and board, which Is not to be worked out afterwards. Chr. L’Orange, Agent for the Hawaiian Bureau of Immigration, Sandwich Islands”.

The idea of a paid voyage and an opportunity to make their fortunes in a new land had an irresistible appeal to many Drammen folk that difficult year of 1880. Norwegians by the thousands were flocking to the US in response to promises of free land or jobs.

However, some were unable to raise the passage money, or unwilling to risk their savings on the gamble of a better life in a new country. To these the phrase, ‘free passage and board, which Is not to be worked out afterwards,’ had a special attraction. (Davis)

The planters were eager for the new laborers to arrive quickly, though Captain L’Orange warned that it would be impossible to find suitable ones in a hurry. The great need in Hawai‘i was for men to work in the fields. (Davis)

When L’Orange began hiring he found men with farm experience difficult to obtain. But there were plenty of artisans and industrial workers from the towns eager to sign his contracts, and from these came most of the recruits for Hawai‘i. (Davis)

Most of the recruits were from the town of Drammen or from nearby areas; but there were a few Swedes as well. The Norwegian bark Beta, commanded by Captain Kasper Rist Christensen, was first to weigh anchor (October 27, 1880). Almost 400 people made up the passenger list – 327 adults, Including 49 married couples, and 69 children 12 years and younger. (Davis)

The ship stopped briefly at Lahaina to take on board Captain L’Orange, who had traveled by a quicker route than the emigrants, and then went on to Ma‘alaea Landing. On February 18, 1881, it let down Its anchor.

On arrival, “The physician of the Board of Health pronounces them the most healthy company of men, women, and children he has ever seen and affirms that they are without the slightest taint of infectious diseases. The planters, who are so fortunate to obtain these laborers, highly value their adaptability by skill, as well as by physical strength, for almost every kind of work of plantations.”

“There are amongst them carpenters, blacksmiths, upholsterers, harness makers, printers, and engineers, while many of the women are admirably adapted for housekeepers.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 2, 1881)

Two hundred and twenty eight adults with their children drew numbers assigning them to Maul. Passengers not included among this number remained on board to be trans-shipped at the end of the week to Hilo by the steamer Llkelike for work on the Hitchcock plantation is Pāpa’ikou. (Davis)

The German bark, ‘Musca’ sailed from Drammen for Hawai‘i, November 23, 1880. Its master was Captain DW Oltman, and it carried 237 passengers, including 29 married and 57 children 12 and under. Arriving in Honolulu on the island of O‘ahu, most of the workers were assigned to a variety of plantations. (Satrum)

The German bark, ‘Cedar’ arrived in Hawai‘i on July 18, 1881, primarily with Germans hired to work in the plantations of Hawai‘i, although there were ten Norwegians and four Swedes on the ship as well. One child was also born during the voyage. (Satrum)

So far, it is good news for the Hawai‘i sugar planters and the Norwegian workers. However, things soon soured …

On both Maui and the Big Island, the Scandinavians had begun complaining almost immediately: They didn’t like the food, they didn’t like their houses, they didn’t like their wages, they felt their employers violated their contracts, they found field work difficult, the Hawaiian sun burned their flesh unmercifully.

Many of the new immigrants declared, flatout, that they’d become slaves. By the time the Musca landed in Honolulu, the folks at Castle & Cooke wanted to scatter the latest contingent of Scandinavians as widely as possible so that they couldn’t band together in their complaints. … But the complaints continued. (Bowman)

For most of the Scandinavians, Hawai‘i was a place to leave as soon as it was possible. It is estimated that about 50 of the immigrants who came to the Islands aboard the Beta and the Musca remained in Hawai‘i.

Some of them stayed on the plantations and moved rapidly out of field work and into positions that took advantage of their industrial skills. Some became integrated into the fabric of Hawai‘i and led successful lives. Christian L’Orange found himself decidedly unpopular with his fellow sugar planters and disbanded his activities on Maui. (Bowman)

Around 1885 the family moved to Florida. One of the reasons that they left Hawai‘i was, without a doubt, all the criticism he had received for having brought such ill-suited laborers to work on the plantations there.

He bought property in Florida and became a tobacco farmer. Christian died in Florida in 1916. Caroline was buried in Hawai‘i in 1935. Their oldest son, Hans Peter Faye L’Orange (born in 1892 in Florida), became one of the administrators of O‘ahu Sugar Company. (Norwegian Heritage)

August 19, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

William Twigg-Smith

He was born November 2, 1882 in New Zealand to Frederick and Alice Smith He was named William Twigg Smith. (Registration #1882/15452, New Zealand Government, Births, Deaths & Marriages Online)

He moved to the US in his late teens, living first in San Francisco, where he studied painting with Evelyn Almond Withrow, and then in Chicago, where he worked with Harry M. Walcott at the School of the Art Institute.

He was also a talented musician and supported himself by playing the flute while in Chicago. (For a number of years in Hawaii, he played second flutist with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra.) He became a naturalized US citizen and visited Hawaiʻi in 1916. (Isaacs Art Center)

He seemed to more-often-than-not go by the first name ‘Twigg’ and last name ‘Smith.’ “The exhibition of paintings by Twigg Smith of San Francisco and Chicago, which began yesterday under the auspices of the University Club, is of interest not only to the lover of art, but the student and follower of island history and development.” (Star Bulletin, Dec 9, 1916)

“This is the third time Smith has visited Honolulu, and each time his stay has been longer. Until he has become to be well known as one of the local community.”

“Honolulu is now ‘home’ to Twigg Smith, and it is his intention to return here after doing his part in the conflict [WWI], if he is one of those so lucky as to return.”

To join the American artists’ battalion in New York Smith must pay his own expenses, and all painting sold during the exhibition will help to send him on his way to aid the trench-fighters on the front in France, or wherever the American troops abroad are placed when they take their share of the fighting.” (Star Bulletin, July 16, 1917)

In WWI he used his artistic skills as a camoufleur; “‘Camouflage’ is the very latest pet word in the great world-war and a well-known Honolulan, Twigg Smith, artist, is now on the road to becoming a first-class camoufleur.”

“[I]n another month he will be on his way to France to put into operation with the American troops some of this new branch of warfare, this new and wholly unique technique of concealment against the spying eyes of the enemy.”

“Twigg Smith was about the first man on the ground, and he carries No. 1 card showing him to be the first member of Company F, 25^th United States Engineers, Camouflage, the official name of the unit.”

“The camouflage unit is in camp at Camp University, Washington. Here are artists of all sorts, sculptors, scene painters, scene shifters, electricians and a host of others. … They are learning how to disguise batteries, hangers, trenches, campos, observation posts, everything that can possibly be disguised by protective coloration or screening.” (Star Bulletin, Oct 20, 1917)

“‘Another feature of the work, perhaps the most dangerous. Is to simulate some feature like a dead horse or an old tree stump out in No Man’s Land between the trenches, so that it may be used as a shelter for sharpshooters.’”

‘‘Those who are detailed for this service creep out between the lines under shelter of darkness and take measurements which enable other artists to copy the object exactly. Then the next night the false object, which is armored, is substituted and the sharpshooter is placed behind it to get as many of the enemy as he can before some of them get him.” Advertiser, July 23, 1917)

After the war, Smith returned permanently to Hawaii. “In Honolulu, July 9, 1919, Twigg Smith and Miss Margaret Carter Thurston” married. (Annual Report, Volume 68, Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, 1920) Margaret was granddaughter of missionaries Asa and Lucy Thurston.

“[H]e recognized that this field [artist] was limited here from the standpoint of income, so he obtained a position with the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association as an illustrator. His responsibility was to reproduce accurately in illustrations the various forms of insect life that affect the growing of sugar.” Advertiser, Sep 21, 1950)

“Wm. Twigg-Smith was employed on a part-time basis starting in January 1923, and on September 1, he was appointed as Illustrator. Mr. Twigg-Smith immediately took up the study of the Jeswiet identification characters of cane varieties, a system of positively identifying any seedlings by the minute and almost microscopic hair groups of the buds and certain leaf areas.” (HSPA, History 1895-1945, Grammer)

William T Smith “was his real name … then he decided when he became the artist he’d hyphenate the name to have some distinction.” (Thurston Twigg-Smith)

Twigg-Smith was in the Volcano School. The Volcano School was a generation of mostly non-native Hawaiian painters who portrayed Hawaiʻi Island’s volcanoes in dramatic fashion during the late 19th century. (NPS HAVO)

This was in the days before color photography – painters were among the most eager to witness and recreate the explosive lava plumes and vibrant flows. (HuffPost)

A distinctive and recognizable school of Hawaiian painting developed. Kīlauea was such a popular subject for painters that a group emerged called the “Volcano School,” which included well-known Hawai‘i painters Charles Furneaux, Joseph Dwight Strong, and D Howard Hitchcock. Check out some of Twigg-Smith’s work at the Volcano House.

“So far as the observation of the present critic goes, Mr Smith is the first painter exhibiting here who has shown something like a sequence of Volcano paintings – an attempt to catch Madame Pele in a systematic series of her changeful moods. … Artist Smith is evidently proudest of his volcano pictures.” (Star Bulletin, Dec 9, 1916)

Twigg-Smith and Hitchcock exhibited their works together, here and in California, and elsewhere on the continent. (Advertiser, Feb 15, 1925)

“Mr Twigg-Smith kept on with his work as a freehand artist and his painting found wide favor here and abroad. It was his dream that when the time came for his retirement he would be able to devote his late years to his first and lasting love – painting. (Advertiser, September 21, 1950) He died April 21, 1950.

August 17, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Georgia O’Keeffe

“The pineapple is quite beautiful as it grows. When it is little and you look down into it as I did into the corn when I painted it – it is very handsome – and later when it is big and has not turned ripe it is a wonderful green and purple sort of color – very beautiful among its foliage …” (Georgia O’Keeffe; Saville)

James Drummond Dole founded Hawaiian Pineapple Company in 1901. Within a few years pineapple production at Wahiawa had increased that Dole planned a cannery at Iwilei, near the shipping facilities of Honolulu Harbor.

Later (1922,) Dole bought the Island of Lānaʻi and transformed it into the largest pineapple plantation in the world, with 20,000 farmed acres and a planned plantation village to house more than a thousand workers and their families.

The ad agency for Dole was looking for something special for a national magazine advertising campaign; in exchange for an all-expense-paid trip, they asked Georgia O’Keeffe to submit two paintings from Hawai‘i. She was also free to paint for herself.

The second of seven children of Wisconsin dairy farmers, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) knew by age ten that she wanted to become an artist. In 1908, she won a prize for a still-life oil painting. After a short hiatus, she painted in earnest and in 1917 held her first solo show (organized by Alfred Stieglitz, her future husband.)

O’Keeffe became one of the greatest female artists of the 20th century. Best known for her still-life paintings, she painted natural settings at their most basic: large-scale flowers, bones and landscapes.

On January 30, 1939, O’Keeffe and Stieglitz headed to New York’s Grand Central Station to start the trip. Nine days later, she stepped off the Lurline, was draped with ʻilima and crown flower lei and found herself in the Islands. (Stelle)

She spent her first month in Hawai‘i on O‘ahu. After 2-weeks, she finally saw a pineapple field; it was “all sharp and silvery stretching for miles off to the beautiful irregular mountains. … I was astonished – it was so beautiful.” (O’Keeffe; Steele)

On March 10, she moved to Maui and ended up in Hāna. “This seems to be the best yet. The trip over by plane was fine – I will be off in the far away some where – but every one says is the good place. The flying was very good and I am fine – 9 in the morning on a new island seems good – Wish you could see it.” (Postcard, O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 10, 1939; Saville)

She was hosted by the Willis Jennings family (he was manager of the Hāna sugar plantation;) “You would laugh to see where I am now – almost at the end of the road on Maui – a little sugar plantation town – at the managers house – the only white family for 60 miles and it is different as the man in Honolulu told me it would be – The mans wife is not at home but his daughter is”. (Letter, O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 12, 1939; Saville)

Twelve-year-old Patricia Jennings became her companion and guide for the next ten days. “The road to Hāna was there, but not paved all the way. We always took a picnic lunch because you never knew how long it would take.” (Patricia Jennings; Tarleton)

O’Keeffe would drive the family car to favorite island sites with Patricia, then send the girl off to amuse herself while she painted. The one exception was when a sudden ‘Īao Valley shower made them retreat to the car. Patricia watched, without speaking, enthralled by the brush in her hand, the effortless glide of oil paints onto canvas. (Tarleton)

“It is hard to tell about the islands—the people have a kind of gentleness that isn’t usual on the mainland. I feel that my tempo must definitely change to put down anything of what is here—I don’t know whether I can or not—but it is certainly a different world—and I am glad I came.” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 12, 1939; Saville)

From Hāna she spent a few days in Wailuku, then, headed to Volcano on the Big Island. “We drove about hundred and 75 miles—part of it through as tropical woods as I have seen—about a third of it along the sea—then up to the top of the volcano where they left me at the (Volcano House) hotel – It was a good day” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 31, 1939; Saville)

“I didn’t care for that place. I don’t like steam coming out of the earth and holes in the road where the earth has opened up and not closed properly – and great bumps about a foot high where the pavement just rose up and didn’t go down.” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 31, 1939; Saville) She soon left the Volcano area and headed to the Kona Inn.

“I guess we did this area of the island pretty thoroughly – First we watched fishermen bringing in their net of fish in a little bay -what beautiful fish – every color and many queer shapes – very very beautiful color – the men swim and dive about – have quite a time gathering their net in.” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, April 3, 1939; Saville)

“All day I was driving over here (Hilo) from Kona Inn and it was a wonderful day – Warm and lovely and blue this morning – the loveliest part the Parker Ranch – quite like (New Mexico) but it is high and the lower part of the island – shore line and sea floating off in space like a map far below with no edge where it went off into the sky – sky became water and water became sky – and all so delicate and lovely – It was as beautiful as anything I’ve ever seen.” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, April 9, 1939; Saville)

She returned briefly to O‘ahu and sailed for California on the Matsonia on April 14. More than six months after her arrival in Hawaiʻi, O’Keeffe had produced 20-paintings, not one included a pineapple and she subsequently “submitted depictions of a papaya tree and the spiky blossom of a lobster’s claw heliconia” for the Dole ads.

Some creative ad copy featuring the heliconia noted, “Hospitable Hawaiʻi cannot send you its abundance of flowers or its sunshine. But it sends you something reminiscent of both – golden fragrant Dole Pineapple Juice”;– it ran nationally in Vogue and the Saturday Evening Post. (Yagi)

For the other ad, “(t)actful Art Director Charles Coiner,” as Time Magazine reported in 1940, “spouted to Painter O’Keeffe about the beauty of pineapples in bud, urg(ing) her to give the pineapple a break. He phoned Honolulu, had a budding plant put aboard the Clipper.”

“Thirty-six hours later the plant was delivered to the O’Keeffe studio in Manhattan. ‘It’s beautiful, I never knew that,’ exclaimed Artist O’Keeffe… She promptly painted it, and Dole got a pineapple picture after all.” (Yagi)

A year after her Hawaiʻi trip, in 1940, she bought a house at Ghost Ranch, in New Mexico. After Stieglitz died in 1946, she settled his estate and moved to New Mexico permanently. There in the wilderness and isolation she continued to paint, and she remained in New Mexico until her death at the age of 98. (Steele)

There is an interesting side note to this story; one day, I received an unrelated FB message asking about Willis Jennings (Patricia’s father.) Unrelated to that, earlier that same day, I received word that Patricia Jennings Morriss Caldwell had just passed away at the age of 87. Patricia Jennings is the mother of my HPA classmate, Lex Morriss.

Georgia_O’Keeffe_in_Hawaii,_1939

Georgia_O’Keeffe_in_Hawaii_1939

Patricia Jennings-Hana_companion and escort of Georgia OKeeffe

Waterfall — No. III — Iao Valley, 1939, by Georgia O’Keeffe

OKeeffe-Bella-Donna

O’keeffe_-_’Pineapple_Bud’,_1939

O’keeffe_-_’Papaya Tree, Iao Valley’,_1939

O’keeffe_-_Dole Pineapple Ad,_1939

Okeefe-Hibiscus

Black Lava Bridge, Hana Coast No. 1-1939, by Georgia O’Keeffe

Hana lava bridge-NYTimes

Black Lava Bridge, Hana Coast-1939, by Georgia O’Keeffe

Georgia_OKeeffe-Waterfall

Georgia Okeeffe-sign

August 10, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pōhakuloa CCC Camp

In 1876, the legislature passed “An Act for the Protection and Preservation of Woods and Forests” in response to water crisis in Honolulu due to deforestation and decrease in stream flow Nuʻuanu Stream, the main source of water for Honolulu.

In 1882, the first government tree nursery was established to provide tree seedlings for reforestation of mauka lands above Honolulu. 50,000 tree seedlings are planted on the denuded slopes of Tantalus (Honolulu). (DLNR-DOFAW)

In 1903, the Hawaii Territorial Legislature passed Act 44 establishing the Board of Agriculture and Forestry, predating the USDA Forest Service by one year. Act 44 expanded on the Forestry Act of 1876 and provided the legal vehicle for the creation of reserves encompassing private as well as public lands.

The Forest Reserve System was created by the Territorial Government of Hawai’i through Act 44 on April 25, 1903. It was cooperative arrangement between the Hawai‘i Sugar Planters Association and the territorial government.

Plantations needed wood for fuel, but they also needed to keep the forests intact to draw precipitation from the trade winds, which in turn fed the irrigation systems in the cane fields below. (DLNR-DOFAW)

The first Territorial forester, Ralph S Hosmer, suggested that the forest had been declining in the uplands as a result of fire, grazing and insects. In order to preserve the forest, it was necessary to keep the ungulates out. From 1924 to 1926 hundreds of thousands of pigs, sheep, cattle and goats were reportedly removed from Hawaii’s Territorial forests.

But the planters were also worried about hunters in the woods starting fires from their camps. Likewise, the commercial ranchers were also wary of individual hunters who could also shoot cattle from the ranch. (Peter Mills)

Then the US economy took a hit … after a decade of national prosperity in the Roaring Twenties, Americans faced a national crisis after the Crash of 1929. The Great Depression saw an unemployment rate of more than twenty-five percent in the early 1930s. (pbs)

As a means to make work Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorized the New Deal; the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) succeeded the Emergency Conservation Work agency, which started in 1933. In 1939, the CCC became part of the Federal Security Agency. (It was eliminated in 1943.) (UH Mānoa)

The purpose of the CCC and its predecessors was to provide employment in forestry and conservation work. It “brought together two wasted resources, the young men and the land, in an effort to save both.” (NPS)

From FDR’s inauguration on March 4, 1933, to the induction of the first CCC enrollee, only 37 days had elapsed. The goals of the CCC according to the law were: “1) To provide employment (plus vocational training) and 2) To conserve and develop ‘the natural resources of the United States.’”

By the end of the third year, there were 2,158-CCC camps in the nation and 1,600,000-men had participated in the program. (NPS)

There were five primary CCC camps built in Hawaiʻi (the CCC Compound at Kokeʻe State Park, the most intact today; what is now a YMCA camp at Keʻanae on Maui; a research facility on the Big Island; Hawaiian Homes Property with only two buildings remaining on the Big Island; and part of Schofield Barracks in Wahiawa on Oʻahu.) Other temporary campgrounds were spotted in work areas around the Islands. (NPS)

While the first 57 CCC enrollees on Hawaiʻi Island began working in 1934, it was not until June of 1935 the first CCC camp was established (in Hawai‘i National Park – as Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park was originally called), which housed 200 enrollees.

The territorial foresters’ camp at Keanakolu was expanded into a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) field camp. All of these buildings are still standing today.

Additional camps were also constructed around Mauna Kea Forest Reserve boundaries to house crews of CCC enrollees. In 1935, a CCC camp was at Pōhakuloa. It included a cluster of buildings and tents that included a recreation/ dining hall, two bunkhouses, two cottages, seven cabins, and seven outbuildings.

Pu‘u Pōhakuloa is a cinder cone overlooking the PTA headquarters area on the Saddle Road. Pōhakuloa means long stone. It also refers to a deity of the forest lands that extended across Mauna Loa towards Mauna Kea. Pōhakuloa, the deity, was a form of the akua Kū, a lover of Poliʻahu, a patron of canoe makers, and in his human form an ʻolohe expert and woodworker,

The hill gives its name to the respective Pōhakuloa references in this area. One early name was associated with a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in this area.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) undertook fencing, road building and visitor facilities on Mauna Kea. The CCC built a stone cabin at Hale Pōhaku, which gained its name (house of stone) from that structure. The cabin at Hale Pōhaku provided a shelter for overnight hikers, hunters and snow players.

In 1935-36, as part of the effort to eradicate wild sheep from the mountain, the CCC took on the project of building a fence around the Mauna Kea Forest Reserve (over 60 miles of fencing). Sheep drives were then carried out in an attempt to eliminate the sheep from the reserve.

The CCC brought water down to Pōhakuloa from a mountain spring … “The CCC days … Up the gulch, up on the mountain, remember, they tapped one of the springs up there …”

“Yes, they had one of the pipes going up. You can see the pipe when you go, it’s coming down.” (Jess Hannah; Maly) “[T]hat water for Pōhakuloa, there’s a spring, Hopukani Spring. CCC boys built the pipeline.” (Davd Woodside; Maly) The spring provided a “continuous supply of pure water.” (Bryan; ASM) (Spring water is no longer used; water is trucked in from Hilo or Waimea.)

The advent of World War II brought an end to the CCC program, as the remaining manpower and funding for the program were redirected toward the war effort.

By July 1, 1942, all Territory of Hawaiʻi CCC camps were closed, transferred to the military, or abandoned. The Army operated Camp Pōhakuloa between 1943 and 1945. The army also took over the old CCC camp house at Pōhakuloa and used it during the war.

After the end of the CCC programs and World War II, the old CCC facilities at Pōhakuloa were primarily used by staff of the Territorial Divisions of Forestry, Fish and Game including lodging by sheep and bird hunters or by other members of the public seeking recreational accommodations.

“Sheep hunters usually gather at Pohakuloa, the lodge maintained by the Hawaiian Board of Forestry and Agriculture. Here they spend the night under piles of blankets (because of the 6,500 foot elevation, the nights are almost always cold) and start out before sunrise for the mountain ridges.”

“They climb to the ten thousand foot elevation, where wild sheep and goats are in abundance. The Board of Forestry encourages hunting, as the animals have caused serious erosion by eating vegetation, and some authorities believe that the sheep and goats will never be entirely exterminated.”

“In its desire to provide hunting facilities, the Territory maintains not only Pohakuloa lodge, with its bedding accommodations for fifty people, but smaller lodges at Kemole and Kahinahina.” (Paradise of the Pacific, May 1948; Maly)

In 1954, the Division of Territorial Parks was created, and the former CCC facilities became part of Pōhakuloa Park, also called “Pohakuloa Hunting Lodge”.

The division began a series of improvements that would eventually replace the existing CCC cabins with all new buildings. (No physical evidence of the original CCC structures remain, as they were removed by 1968.)

In August 1962, DLNR’s Division of State Parks officially assumed all responsibility for administering these facilities and booking overnight accommodations. Forestry, Fish and Game staff continued to use a number of older structures.

The transformation of the Pōhakuloa CCC camp into the Pōhakuloa Park and later Mauna Kea State Recreation Area happened between 1961 and 1970.

The first of these improvements was a picnic area south of the Saddle Road from the CCC cabins. In 1961, major improvements to the Park began with the addition of new cabins. The first three cabins, variously called the “Housekeeping,” “Family,” or “Vacation” cabins, were built northeast of the former CCC complex, followed by two more the following year.

These five identical cabins, built on post-and-pier foundations, were prefabricated cedar structures manufactured by Loxide Structures of Tacoma, Washington. The cabins were roofed with cedar shakes and were replaced with corrugated metal in 1989.

Each of these cabins was named after a native Hawaiian plant as illustrated by a wooden plaque near its door with the plant name. In 1963, the existing comfort station was built, using a combination of fir, pine, and hollow tile.

A new headquarters building, caretaker’s cabin, and a storage building were constructed. Each of these were pre-fabricated by Pan-Abode Company in Washington State. The buildings are tongue-in-groove cedar log cabins built on post-and-pier foundations and roofed with cedar shakes.

The two “Family” cabins (now the ADA accessible cabins) were also built near the cluster of vacation cabins on the other side of the recreation area. These cabins, like the other new buildings, were prefabricated tongue-ingroove cedar kit cabins supplied by the Pan-Abode Company.

With the construction of the Comfort Station, the park’s picnic area was relocated from south of Saddle Road to its present location.

At its meeting on March 28, 2014, BLNR approved the management transfer of the State Park to the Department of Parks and Recreation, County of Hawai‘i; and approved the withdrawal of the park area from the Mauna Kea Forest Reserve and set aside to the County for park purposes.

The park was renamed Gilbert Kahele Recreation Area in 2019. The late Hawai‘i Island State Senator, Gilbert Kahele, “worked just down the road from the recreation area for 34 years as Director of the Public Works Division at the Pōhakuloa Training Area.”

“When he served in the state legislature he was instrumental in achieving park improvements by way of the transfer of the management to Hawai‘i County.” (Kahele; DLNR Release) Lots here is from Cultural Surveys, ASM and Rosendahl.)