Place Names | Page 26 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

August 12, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kalaupapa

“The Makanalua peninsula – often simply referred to as ‘Kalaupapa’ or ‘the Kalaupapa peninsula’ – includes three ahupua‘a. Kalaupapa National Historical Park contains 10,725 acres over 12 square miles, including 2,000 acres of ocean.”

“Owners of the land include the State Department of Land and Natural Resources, the State Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (1,247 acres) and The National Park Service (23 acres at the Kalaupapa Lighthouse …). Some smaller land holdings at the top of the North Shore cliffs that separate the peninsula from topside Molokai are privately owned.” (Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa)

“The park service has a $250,000 a year lease with DHHL which runs through 2041, and another lease with DLNR which expires in 2029.” (OHA)

State law (HRS §326-34) states that the county of Kalawao consists of that portion of the island of Molokai known as Kalaupapa, Kalawao and Waikolu, and commonly known or designated as the Kalaupapa Settlement, and is not a portion of the County of Maui, but is constituted a county by itself.

Access to Kalaupapa is severely limited. There are no roads to the peninsula from “topside” Molokai. Land access is via a steep trail on the pali (sea cliff) that is approximately three miles long with 26 switchbacks.

Kalaupapa National Historical Park became a unit of the National Park System in 1980. The primary story being told at Kalaupapa is the forced isolation from 1866 until 1969 of people from Hawaiʻi afflicted with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) to the remote northern Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Molokai. (NPS)

The Park differs significantly from most other national parks in that nearly all of the 8,725 acres of land, 2,000 acres of water, and improvements within the authorized boundary may remain in non-Federal ownership to be managed by the National Park Service through cooperative agreements.

The primary responsibilities for the State Department of Health at Kalaupapa are to provide food, housing, health care, and social services for the patient community. Patients have the right to take and utilize fish and wildlife resources without regard to Federal fish and game laws and regulations.

On a national level, Congress established the Park per (PL 96-565 (1980)):

to preserve and interpret the Kalaupapa settlement for present and future generations;
to provide a well-maintained community in which the Kalaupapa leprosy patients are guaranteed that they may remain at Kalaupapa as long as they wish and to protect the current lifestyle of these patients and their individual privacy. In addition, Congress called for preservation and maintenance of the present character of the community and its historic sites and structures.
to provide that the preservation and interpretation of the settlement be managed and performed by patients and Native Hawaiians to the extent practical, and that training opportunities be provided to such persons in management and interpretation of the settlement’s cultural, historical, educational, and scenic resources.

Under Lease No. 231, DHHL leases 1,247-acres of land at Kalaupapa to the National Park Service to and including July 14, 2041, “solely as an integral part of the Kalaupapa National Historical Park established by Public Law 96-565 and for the purposes expressed therein.”

The park has formal twenty-year cooperative agreements with the State of Hawaiʻi, Departments of Health, Transportation, and Land and Natural Resources. The cooperative agreements allow for shared responsibilities.

“The feared and then-untreatable disease arrived in Hawaii with merchant sailors in the 1840s. ‘The disease became epidemic. There arose a fear that perhaps Hawaii would become a bastion of leprosy,’ according to Dr S Kalani Brady, a professor and physician in Hawaii who treats the islands’ remaining Hansen’s disease patients. This fear spurred the authorities to take harsh action.” (NIH)

On January 6, 1866, nine men and three women were sent to what is commonly known as the Kalaupapa peninsula because of a new government policy that called for the isolation of anyone diagnosed with leprosy.

They would be the first of an estimated 8,000 people from Hawaii who would be taken from their families and relocated, first in the original settlement on the windward side of Kalawao and, later, at Kalaupapa on the leeward side. (Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa)

“[T]hey processed as criminals anyone suspected of having a telltale skin blemish. First, the person was arrested and examined, naked, by a circle of experts. Those convicted were boated to the Kalaupapa settlement on Molokai Island … and were left to spend the rest of their curtailed lives void of medical support, rule of law or any further contact with family.”

“[M]ore than 8,000 Hawaiians with leprosy were confined on the island of Molokai, where they could not escape due to the high cliffs on one side and shark-infested ocean on the other.” (NIH)

“Nine (9) patients remain of those individuals that chose to remain as residents in Kalaupapa after the repeal of Hawaii’s isolation law in 1969. Now ranging in age from 80 to 97 years, these individuals continue to suffer some disabilities related to Hansen’s disease, but also deal with chronic diseases and conditions commonly associated with aging.” (DOH, (2022))

Congress authorized a Kalaupapa memorial and in 2022, the Hawai‘i legislature appropriated $5-million for the Kalaupapa Memorial, to be located in Kalawao across from St Philomena – the names of the Hawai‘i residents removed from their homes and relocated to Kalaupapa Peninsula will be engraved in polished granite. (Tsai)

The memorial, designed in consultation with architects, planners, Native Hawaii cultural specialists and descendants of Kalaupapa residents, will consist of two-interlocking circles representing those who were forced to relocate and those they left behind and their descendants. According to Ka Ohana o Kalaupapa, the intersection of the two circles represents the reunification that most residents were never able to realize. (Tsai)

Kalaupapa has been home for 100 years for people once banished from society, but it is in transition due to its ever-decreasing patient population. The settlement is much quieter than it once was. There are fewer buildings. Life today is lived at a somewhat slower pace. (NPS)

So, what’s next?

“[W]hen there is no longer a resident patient community at Kalaupapa, the Secretary [of the Interior] shall reevaluate the policies governing the management, administration, and public use of the park in order to identify any changes deemed to be appropriate.” (Public Law 95-565, Sec. 109, dated Dec. 22, 1980, to establish Kalaupapa National Historical Park)

“With the patient population getting smaller, there has been a tendency lately to refer to a time in the near future at Kalaupapa ‘when there are no more patients.’ The ‘Ohana does not believe such a time will ever come to be. While the patient population may no longer be with us physically, they will always be present spiritually. They will always be part of this land.” (Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa)

Per the NPS’ Revised General Management Plan (2021), “In the near term, Kalaupapa Settlement would continue to function much as it does today. …”

“In the long term, the NPS would strive to maintain buildings, structures, and cultural landscape features within Kalaupapa Settlement that are eligible for listing in the National Register and/or contribute to the NHL [National Historic Landmark] ….”

“In the long term, houses and other structures may be adaptively reused and could be managed by other entities, such as agency partners, organizations, and concession operations, pursuant to appropriate agreements or contracts.” (NPS)

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.)

August 7, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Nothing can touch it”

“‘When we first went to Napili,’ said Mrs Kep Aluli, ‘it was an isolated beach with one cottage on it. We loved it.’” Star Bulletin, Jan 14, 1970.

In 1956, Kep Aluli and Yoshio Ogami were successful bidders for two of the thirteen “choice Napili beach lots” [they bought lots 7 & 8] “at “Napili beach in the Kaanapali section of Lahaina”. These were through an auction of Territory of Hawai‘i properties. (Advertiser, July 2, 1956)

Shortly thereafter, it was reported that “Kep Aluli, Honolulu builder, is planning a hotel at Napili Beach”. The land acquired from the Territory plus an acquisition of adjoining property “gives the developers a two-acre, beach-frontage hotel site and another acre a hundred feet away for tennis courts and beach facilities.”

“Describing the location, Aluli said, ‘Nothing can touch it.’” (Star Bulletin, Sept 11, 1956)

Aluli and Ogami built the Mauian Hotel on this property and shortly thereafter the Napali Kai and Hale Napli (and later others) sprang up.

“An entirely new resort complex has developed around Napili Bay, pioneered by Honolulu’s Kep Aluli and Canadian investors.” Honolulu Advertiser, Feb 15, 1966)

“Beyond Kaanapali, in that heart of Lahaina around Napili Bay, the new era already seems to have arrived.” “If the muscle and brain of the new Lahaina are at Kaanapali, its heart is more easily found at Napili”. (Honolulu Advertiser, July 17, 1964)

Kep Aluli was my parents’ classmate at Punahou. Others in the extended Aluli family were classmates with me and my siblings. When we were kids, we used to visit different neighbor islands during the summer; the visits to the Alulis at Napili were a special treat.

(During an extended Punahou alumni celebration, some of our classmates went to Maui and stayed at the Mauian at Napili – I wonder if the arrangers and others knew of the generations of connection the place has back to Punahou (with Kep’s nephew being one of our classmates.))

Napili, meaning the joinings or the pili grass, is on the West end of Maui. This area is referred to as Hono a Pi‘ilani (the Bays of Piʻilani (aka Honoapiʻilani,); from South to North, six of the identified bays are Honokōwai (bay drawing fresh water), Honokeana (cave bay), Honokahua (sites bay,) Honolua (two bays), Honokōhau (bay drawing dew) and Hononana (animated bay).

Sweet potatoes were reportedly grown between Honokōhau and Kahakuloa, presumably on lower kula lands; Kahana Ahupua’a was known as a place of salt gathering for the people of Lahaina.

Coastal marine foraging and fishing were combined with more upland agricultural pursuits. People would have moved between the coast and the upland agricultural fields, using the full range of resources available within their ahupua‘a. Semi-permanent and permanent habitation probably occurred in both coastal and upland settings.

Whaling (centered at Lahaina Town) was the first commercial enterprise in West Maui, but it had more or less collapsed by the 1860s. Commercial sugar cane production was the next large business venture in West Maui, starting as early as 1863, and it was focused between Ka‘anapali and Lahaina.

In the later 19th century, lands in West Maui became part of the Campbell Estate. This was also the time that the Honolua Ranch was first established. Cattle ranching began then and was continued by Henry Perrine Baldwin, who acquired the lands from the Campbell Estate in 1890.

In addition to ranching, other early commercial activities included coffee farming. David T. Fleming became manager of Honolua Ranch. Fleming was well-versed in pineapple production from the Hai‘ku area and gradually began shifting the ranch’s initiative to pineapple production.

The Honolua Ranch/Baldwin Packers complex shifted from Honolua to Honokahua in 1915, and a pineapple cannery was constructed. A major commercial pineapple industry emerged in West Maui during the 1920s.

The plantation communities of Honokahua and Napili emerged and developed as the Honolua Ranch/Baldwin Packers pineapple operations grew. The population of the Lahaina area increased with the successful economic operations of the pineapple plantation.

Baldwin Packers merged with Maui Pineapple Company in 1962 to form Maui Land and Pineapple Company, Inc. After this time, much of the Honolua Ranch lands were converted for resort development. Kep Aluli expanded that into Napili. (Lots of information here is from Scientific Consultant Services.)

August 6, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hoʻokena

Hoʻokena i ka laʻi …
Hoʻolu ʻia no Hoʻokena
Ho`oheno ana i ka mana`o
Na kupa o ka `aina
Hoʻolu i ka maka o ka malihini

Hoʻokena in the calm …
Truly pleasant is Hoʻokena
Cherished in the thoughts of the
Residents of the land
Pleasant in the sight of the visitor
(Lot Kauwe)

“Hoʻokena is its name. … On the immediate foreshore, under a low cliff, there stood some score of houses, trellised and verandaed in green and white; the whole surrounded and shaded by a grove of coco palms and fruit trees, springing (as by a miracle) from the bare lava.”

“In front, the population of the neighborhood were gathered for the weekly incident, the passage of the steamer, sixty to eighty strong and attended by a disproportionate allowance of horses, mules, and donkeys ….” (Robert Louis Stevenson; Travels in Hawaiʻi) Let’s step back.

In the traditional Hawaiian time, Kona people were supported with dry-land agricultural fields known today as the Kona Field System. A prominent element of the system is the network of kuaiwi, low and long piles of stone that create a net-like pattern over the landscape. There are four main zones to the Kona Field System were: kula, kaluʻulu, ʻāpaʻa and ʻamaʻu.

The kula is from the coast to approximately the 500 -foot elevation; this land was used to cultivate ʻuala (sweet potato,) gourd and wauke. In later times, cabbage, wauke melons, onions, oranges, tobacco, beans, coffee, corn, cotton, pineapple, Irish potatoes, and pumpkin were added to the cultivated foodstuffs. Habitation was concentrated in villages along the shoreline in this zone.

The kaluʻulu, or seaward slope, is between 500 and 1,000-feet above sea level; ʻulu (breadfruit) and mountain apple were grown in addition to ʻuala, gourds and wauke in this zone. Habitation was in lighter densities than the shoreline.

The ʻāpaʻa, or upland slope, approximately 1,000 to 2,500-feet above sea level, found cultivation of kalo (taro,) ʻuala, kī (ti) and sugarcane. Cabbage, melons, onions, oranges, tobacco, beans, coffee, corn, cotton, pineapple, Irish potatoes and pumpkin were grown in later times. Small habitation areas were scattered.

The ʻamaʻu, or upland forest, from 2,500 to 4,000-foot elevation was planted with bananas and plantains. Forest resources, such as wood for canoes and feathers from birds, were also an essential part of the resource extraction for this zone. Temporary shelters were present to support visits to and through this area. Movement up and down the system was facilitated by well-worn trails. (Wolforth)

Along the coast was an alaloa. Alaloa were long trails that formed primary routes of travel between communities, royal centers, religious sites and resources. Initially single-file footpaths, the trail followed the contours of coast. Over the years they were widened, straightened and curbstones were added.

In the vicinity of Hoʻokena, the ‘1871 Trail’ (the year noted the time of widening of the trail) was the main transportation artery for coastal travel from Hoʻokena to Nāpoʻopoʻo. It was often referred to as a “2-horse trail,”) wide enough for two horses to pass. In 1918, the trail section north of Hōnaunau was improved for wheeled traffic; however, the section south to Hoʻokena was never modified for motorized vehicles. (NPS)

Transportation changed (a lot) when the steam ships came and serviced the Islands. The first steamer to visit the Hawaiian Islands was the Hudson’s Bay Company’s ‘Beaver;’ it was en route to Fort Vancouver, entering the Honolulu Harbor on February 4, 1836. (It sailed here; her paddle wheels were added when it reached the Columbia River.)

The earliest vessel actually to steam into Island waters was the HBM Cormorant that arrived at Honolulu from Callao on May 22, 1846. “This is the first steamer ever arrived here, and the natives were in a state of great excitement,” reported CS Lyman. “She came up very slowly, with little motion of the wheels and little smoke visible.” (Schmitt)

First, government ships then private interests provided inter and intra-island transportation. Competitors Wilder Steamship Co (1872) and Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co (1883) ran different routes, rather than engage in head to head competition.

On Hawaiʻi Island, Mahukona, Kawaihae and Hilo were the Island’s major ports; Inter-Island served Kona ports. From Kailua, the steamer went south stopping at the Kona ports of Nāpoʻopoʻo, Hoʻokena, Hoʻopuloa, rounding South Point, touching at the Kaʻū port of Honuʻapo and finally arriving at Punaluʻu, Kaʻū, the terminus of the route.

A royal visitor noted her trip to Hoʻokena in the early-1880s, “… our steamer proceeded to Hoʻokena … there were special causes for my resolution that this district should not be passed by. It was at that time distinctively Hawaiian.”

“The pure native race had maintained its position there better than in most localities. There had been no introduction of the Chinese amongst the people, nor had any other race of foreigners come to live near their homes. The Hawaiian families had married with Hawaiians, settling side by side with those of their own blood.”

“Thus it was that only on Hawaii, and in no other part of the group of islands, could there be found a district so thickly populated, where the population was so strictly of my own people, as this to which I was now a visitor.” (Liliʻuokalani)

A landing was built at Hoʻokena to accommodate the ships. “The Hoʻokena landing consists of a rock pier off shore … the sea washing between it and the mainland.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 7, 1902) Recommended improvements were made, “Purser Conkling of the steamer Mauna Loa reports that work on the warehouse and landing at Hoʻokena will soon be commenced by the contractors.” (Hawaiian Star, April 24, 1903)

The landing was named Kupa Landing in honor of Henry Cooper (Kupa,) road supervisor of the District of South Kona from 1871 to 1880. Hoʻokena Village grew into a major sea port for Kona.

By the 1890s, Chinese immigrants moved in. Licenses issued included those for cake peddling, selling food and merchandise, running a retail store, butchering pork and operating two restaurants and a hotel. (Kona Historical Society)

On a trip Governor Carter made to the ‘Konas’ (North and South,) “a petition on behalf of the people of Hoʻokena asking the Governor to provide lands for them …. The petition also requested the government to establish a pineapple cannery for the farmers in the district who were growing that fruit.”

“The Governor replied at length, saying that he could not buy lands for them because of the lack of revenue. He believed that the conditions for the growing of pineapples were more favorable in Kona than anywhere else, but said that the government could not establish a cannery, although with private capital it would be a success.”

“’I don’t believe the government should go into any other business,’ said Mr. Carter; ‘it has troubles enough of its own now, in taking care of the schools, the public works, the police and the courts.’” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 22, 1904)

By 1929, the wharf was receiving freight only twice a month, so the stores and post office had closed. (KHS) The village’s economic importance began to diminish; the introduction of automobiles and trucks made steamship landings at Hoʻokena less common and many residents moved away from the remote village to be closer to the highway. (KUPA)

By the mid-1930s, high surf had demolished Kupa Landing; cattle continued to be shipped out of Hoʻokena up until the early 1940s. (Nā Peʻa) The steamships left and so did most of the people. Relocating closer to the highway, people all but left the once important shore of Hoʻokena. Few people remained and few live in Hoʻokena today. (UH DURP)

In 2007, Friends of Hoʻokena Beach Park an outgrowth of Kamaʻāina United to Protect the ʻĀina (KUPA), signed an agreement with the County to transfer management oversight of the park at Hoʻokena to FOHBP. They have hired community members to maintain the park and provide park security via the “Aloha Patrol.”

The Hoʻokena Beach Park sits at the northern end of Kauhakō Bay.

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August 4, 2024 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

ʻEke Crater

Early Hawaiians considered ʻEke Crater (also called Puʻu ʻEke, Mauna ʻEke and (rarely) Mauna Eeka or Eeke) near the summit of the West Maui Mountain to be Heaven’s Gate, or a doorway between the physical and spiritual worlds. (West Maui Watershed)

“Mauna ʻEke is the name given to the circular range in the bosom of which lies the valley, whose sides, moistened with mists and trickling streams, are perennially green.”

“Ferns and convolvuli adorn the precipices ; shining leaves, delicately stemmed, tremble and gleam with every breath of wind.” (Twombly, 1900)

Maui is the second largest island of the archipelago, its oldest volcano (West Maui Mountain or Mauna Kahalawai) ca 1.3-million years old, East Maui Volcano (Haleakalā) ca 750,000-years old and considered active (last historical eruption in 1790.)

“You can see why, in 1841, the captain of a whaling vessel wrote, ‘See how that east part of the island rises abruptly into one high mountain, while the west section, though rugged, is not so lofty.'”

“‘Mauna ʻEke, on the west, is little more than five thousand feet high, while Haleakala, on the east, runs into the clouds nearly twice as far. But you will find that the more lowly of the two mountain masses has wilder scenery to offer.'”

“‘East Maui has wonderful attractions, but I find keener and more lasting pleasure in climbing up and down the ridges thrust out as ʻEke reaches down to the sea.'”

“(T)he wild valley and its surroundings have been left unchanged. In fact, everything must look much as it did when the first Polynesian migration entered Maui long centuries before America was discovered”.

“(Y)es, hundreds of years before the Norman Conquest of England – that is, unless ʻEke has been in eruption since then. If so, the lava long ago disintegrated into the richest sort of soil.” (Paradise of the Pacific, 1929)

ʻEke Crater is an extinct volcanic dome with eroded sides and gently concave summit. The summit bog is underlain by a clay hardpan over a compressed lava core and is characterized by numerous pits and open water ponds. (Powell)

Towering at nearly 4,500 feet in elevation, the name ‘Crater’ is quite deceiving, as no visible crater remains today. The mountain is actually the remnants of an eroded volcanic cone.

Measuring 1,600-feet in diameter, its rock core provides a moist impermeable surface on which unique montane bog communities thrive.

Highlighting and adorning its surface are mirrored pools of water with shimmering ʻEke silverswords and Nohoanu (a Geranium.) While beautiful, it is dangerous and riddled with sink holes and lava tubes. (West Maui Watershed)

The ʻEke silversword is endemic to the summit and ridges of ʻEke and Puʻu Kukui. It is described as a “branching, dwarf shrub” and “creeping profusely over the ground and progressively dying back at the base, thus isolating the branches into independent plants.” (Powell)

Nearby is Kiʻowaiokihawahine (Violet Lake.) The lake is small, only 10-20-feet in size, and formed in the boggy areas near ʻEke Crater and Puʻu Kukui.

Puʻu Kukui is considered the 2nd wettest spot (behind Waiʻaleʻale, Kauai,) and it and ʻEke Crater are often hidden in the clouds.