Place Names | Page 46 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

November 8, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

America the Beautiful

Katharine Lee Bates, was born on August 12, 1859 in Falmouth, Massachusetts; she was described as a “brilliant trail-blazing woman – poet, teacher, community builder, and patriot – who challenged Americans to make their country the best it could become in its values and literature.” (Ponder)

Bates graduated from Wellesley College in 1880; she joined the faculty just five years later. After earning her master’s degree at Oxford University in 1890, Bates became the head of the English literature department.

“It appears that in 1893 Miss Bates had been called to join the faculty of a summer school at Colorado Springs. On the way she visited the Columbian World’s Fair at Chicago.”

The end of the three-weeks’ session of the school was celebrated by the stranger members of the faculty (including Dr. Rolfe, the Shakespearean scholar; Professor Todd, the Amherst astronomer, and Miss Bates’ colleague at Wellesley, Professor Katherine Conan) with an excursion to the summit of Pike’s Peak.” (Baxter in Boston Herald)

“We strangers celebrated the close of the session by a merry expedition to the top of Pike’s Peak, making the ascent by the only method then available for people not vigorous enough to achieve the climb on foot nor adventurous enough for burro-riding.”

“Prairie wagons, their tail-boards emblazoned with the traditional slogan, ‘Pike’s Peak or Bust,’ were pulled by horses up to the half-way house, where the horses were relieved by mules.”

“We were hoping for half and hour on the summit, but two of our party became so faint in the rarified air that we were bundled into the wagons again and started on our downward plunge so speedily that our sojourn on the peak remains in memory hardly more than one ecstatic gaze.”

“It was then and there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind.” (Bates)

Gazing out from the top, the view from the “purple mountain majesties” (the Rocky Mountains) captivated Bates and inspired the opening lines or her poem (it later became a song).

In the first stanza, Bates describes “amber waves of grain.” She later remarked that this lyric referred to the seas of grass and grain fields in Kansas that she could see from the top of Pikes Peak.

The final stanzas of the song offer praise for “heroes proved in liberating strife” and a vision of “nobleness,” and “brotherhood.” These lines became popular among American troops fighting overseas during World War I. (NPS)

The refrain “From sea to shining sea!” is perhaps one of the more recognizable lyrics. Yet, the first version of Bates’ poem read “And music-hearted sea!” The more familiar wording did not appear until 1910.

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

“When we left Colorado Springs the four stanzas were penciled in my notebook, together with other memoranda, in verse and prose, of the trip.”

“The Wellesley work soon absorbed time and attention again, the notebook was laid aside, and I do not remember paying heed to these verses until the second summer following, when I copied them out and sent them to The Congregationalist, where they first appeared in print July 4, 1895.” (It was first presented as a poem, “America”.)

“The hymn attracted an unexpected amount of attention. It was almost at once set to music by Silas G. Pratt. Other tunes were written for the words and so many requests came to me, with still increasing frequency, that in 1904 I rewrote it, trying to make the phraseology more simple and direct.” (Bates, Museum on the Green)

“America the Beautiful” has been called “an expression of patriotism at its finest.” It conveys an attitude of appreciation and gratitude for the nation’s extraordinary physical beauty and abundance, without triumphalism. (LOC)

Katharine Lee Bates died March 28, 1929 and is buried in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Radiocarbon dating indicates that Clovis people were the first to inhabit the area, roughly around 11,000 BC. More recently, Ute, Comanche, Arapaho and Cheyenne also frequented the area. The Utes called Pikes Peak “Sun Mountain Sitting Big” and believed that it was here that the Great Spirit created the world.

Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Pikes Peak became part of the United States. In 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike, after whom the peak is named, was sent on an expedition to locate the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers.

The expedition also aimed to explore the new territory and its natural resources, as well as establish friendly relations with Native American nations. On November 15 he spotted the peak and referred to it as “the Grand Peak.” (Colorado Encyclopedia)

Pikes Peak is the 31st highest peak out of 54 Colorado peaks (at 14,115 feet). It is the farthest east of the big peaks in the Rocky Mountain chain, which contributed to its early fame among explorers, pioneers and immigrants.

During the 1850s and 1860s an estimated 100,000 people moved to Colorado in search of gold and were known as “Fifty-Niners”, a reference to 1859, the year the rush to Colorado peaked.

The initial gold discoveries were made below confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River, which is now the location of downtown Denver. Denver City was established near the gold discoveries in late 1858.

The first “bonanza” of rich gold placers was discovered by a prospecting party from Georgia led by John Gregory, at a site that was first named “Gregory Gulch” and would soon be the site of the Central City mining district. Other gold discoveries were made and news reports back East caused the frenzied rush to the Pikes Peak region.

It was the symbol of the 1858 Gold Rush to Colorado with the slogan, “Pikes Peak or Bust”, reference to the prominent mountain at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains that guided many early prospectors to the region westward over the Great Plains.

October 24, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Golden Gate Bridge

For years, I used to go to San Francisco three times a year (on my way top Napa); we would always go to the Golden Gate Bridge and walk (or bicycle across and have lunch in Sausalito and catch the ferry back to the city) or simply gaze at it.

We don’t go anymore. It used to be relatively safe and clean; that has changed.

In a pre-election questionnaire published in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco’s District Attorney, Chesa Boudin said: “We will not prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes. Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted.”

The May 22, 2023 ‘City Performance’ report from the City’s Office of the Comptroller notes “Broken glass was the most commonly observed hazard, on approximately 50% of surveyed streets and sidewalks” and “Feces [human and animal] was another notable observed hazard, on approximately 50% of street segments in Key Commercial Areas”.

San Francisco even has an App for that … “Snapcrap is a mobile app that allows residents of San Francisco to request street and sidewalk cleaning from the city’s Public Works department by submitting a photo of something gross (usually crap) and sharing its location.” (App developer Sean Miller)

OK, back to the better days and the Golden Gate Bridge … “It may seem incomprehensible to the twentieth century layman that

San Francisco Bay … was not discovered until the late eighteenth century – and then not by seamen but by a party of Portola’s land expedition led by Sergeant Jose Francisco de Ortega, in 1769.”

“The historical fact remains, however, that the Golden Gate was not recognized as a bay entrance from the seaward side until it had been discovered from a height on land.”

“The first ship to enter San Francisco Bay was the San Carlos commanded by Don Manuel de Ayala, under orders from the government of Spain to examine the port of San Francisco.”

“The log of the San Carlos discloses that three approaches were made to within the Gulf of the Farallons, two of which were aborted because of nightfall when the courses were reversed.”

“The third approach, on which the Golden Gate was sighted and entered, required over twelve hours of maneuvering with strong currents and tides before the vessel finally made the channel and dropped anchor approximately a league inside the entrance, under Fort Point, for the night. This occurred on August 5, 1775.” (Capt Adolph S Oko)

Rather than being named for the area’s association with the Gold Rush, the Bridge is actually named for the water that runs beneath it – The Golden Gate Strait.

During the mid-1800s, soldier and explorer John Fremont gave the passage its name, borrowing from the Greek term, ‘Chrysoplae.’ In English, it translates to ‘Golden Gate,’ which was fitting, as Fremont saw the similarities between San Francisco and another port town from antiquity:

“[When] John C. Fremont saw the watery trench that breached the range of coastal hills on the western edge of otherwise landlocked San Francisco Bay, it reminded him of another beautiful landlocked harbor: the Golden Horn of the Bosporus in Constantinople, now Istanbul.”

Thus, the name for this gateway to the Pacific Ocean was born. Little did Fremont realize, however, that years later, the name would also be lent to the now-famous bridge that joins the sides of this mighty expanse. (Towers at Rincon)

Fast forward … the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District originated with the 1923 California Bridge and Highway District Act, specifically intended to allow for the public financing, construction, and administration of a bridge across the Golden Gate.

A year and a half after the passage of the enabling act, members of the Bridging the Golden Gate Association could finally start the process of enrolling counties. They specified the eight most likely candidates: San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Humboldt, Lake, and Del Norte.

A call for bids on construction contracts was made on June 17, 1931; on February 26, 1933, 100,000 people witnessed the symbolic start of construction in San Francisco, when William P Filmer (president of the board of directors), Joseph B Strauss (engineer of the bridge) and San Francisco Mayor Angelo Rossi broke ground with a golden spade. (Dyble)

It was in 1935 that an architect on the project proposed it be painted an orange color that would go well with its surroundings. The two sides of the bridge met in the middle in 1936. Eleven workers lost their lives during construction, all but one of them in a single accident shortly before the bridge opened. (Time)

On May 27, 1937, San Franciscans celebrated as nearly 180,000 people crossed the bridge by foot. It opened to cars the next day. The Golden Gate Bridge was, TIME noted the following week, “the world’s greatest” bridge “by practically every measurement.” (The main span is 4,200 feet long; at the time that was the world’s longest suspension span.)

“With eager expectation, San Franciscans and the citizens of the Redwood Empire have looked forward to this day when the mighty Golden Gate Bridge would be opened to the traffic of the world. And now that this glorious enterprise is completed, rejoicing is in every heart.” (Mayor Angelo Rossi)

“The biggest task that ever challenged the genius, courage and will of man has been accomplished. After nearly a century of dreaming, decades of talk, and five years of heroic labor, the Bridge stands here, the noblest structure of steel upon this planet.” (Toole)

October 8, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

ʻEwa

Today, you don’t necessarily use the words ʻEwa and Kalo in the same sentence – we tend to think of the ʻEwa district as dry and hot, not as a wetland taro production region. Some early written descriptions of the place also note the dry ʻEwa Plains.

In 1793, Captain George Vancouver described this area as desolate and barren: “From the commencement of the high land to the westward of Opooroah (Puʻuloa – Pearl Harbor) was … one barren rocky waste, nearly destitute of verdure, cultivation or inhabitants, with little variation all to the west point of the island. …”

In 1839, Missionary EO Hall described the area between Pearl Harbor and Kalaeloa as follows: “Passing all the villages (after leaving the Pearl River) at one or two of which we stopped, we crossed the barren desolate plain”. (Robicheaux)

However, not only was ʻEwa productive, its taro was memorable.

Ua ʻai i ke kāī-koi o ‘Ewa.
He has eaten the kāī-koi taro of ‘Ewa.

Kāī is O‘ahu‘s best eating taro; one who has eaten it will always like it. Said of a youth or maiden of ‘Ewa, who, like the Kāī taro, is not easily forgotten. (ʻŌlelo Noʻeau, 2770, Pukui)

The island of Oʻahu is divided into 6 moku (districts), consisting of: ‘Ewa, Kona, Koʻolauloa, Koʻolaupoko, Waialua and Waiʻanae. These moku were further divided into 86 ahupua‘a (land divisions within a moku.)

‘Ewa was divided into 12-ahupua‘a, consisting of (from east to west): Hālawa, ‘Aiea, Kalauao, Waimalu, Waiau, Waimano, Mānana, Waiʻawa, Waipi‘o, Waikele, Hōʻaeʻae and Honouliuli.

‘Ewa was at one time the political center for O‘ahu chiefs. This was probably due to its abundant resources that supported the households of the chiefs, particularly the many fishponds around the lochs of Puʻuloa (“long hill,) better known today as Pearl Harbor. (Cultural Surveys) ʻEwa was the second most productive taro cultivation area on Oʻahu (just behind Waikīkī.) (Laimana)

The salient feature of ‘Ewa, and perhaps its most notable difference, is its spacious coastal plain, surrounding the deep bays (“lochs”) of Pearl Harbor, which are actually the drowned seaward valleys of ‘Ewa’s main streams, Waikele and Waipi‘o…The lowlands, bisected by ample streams, were ideal terrain for the cultivation of irrigated taro. (Handy, Cultural Surveys)

‘Ewa was known for a special and tasty variety of kalo (taro) called kāī which was native to the district. There were four documented varieties; the kāī ʻulaʻula (red kāī), kāī koi (kāī that pierces), kāī kea or kāī keʻokeʻo (white kāī), and kāī uliuli (dark kāī.) (Handy)

Handy says about ‘Ewa: “The lowlands, bisected by ample streams, were ideal terrain for the cultivation of irrigated taro. The hinterland consisted of deep valleys running far back into the Koʻolau range.”

“Between the valleys were ridges, with steep sides, but a very gradual increase of altitude. The lower parts of the valley sides were excellent for the culture of yams and bananas. Farther inland grew the ‘awa for which the area was famous.”

“The length or depth of the valleys and the gradual slope of the ridges made the inhabited lowlands much more distant from the wao, or upland jungle, than was the case on the windward coast. Yet the wao here was more extensive, giving greater opportunity to forage for wild foods in famine time. (Handy)

Earlier this century, a few fishermen and some of their families built shanties by the shore where they lived, fished and traded their catch for taro at ‘Ewa. Their drinking water was taken from nearby ponds, and it was so brackish that other people could not stand to drink it. (Maly)

An 1899 newspaper account says of the kāī koi, “That is the taro that visitors gnaw on and find it so good that they want to live until they die in ‘Ewa. The poi of kai koi is so delicious”. (Ka Loea Kalai ʻĀina 1899, Cultural Surveys) So famous was the kāī variety that ‘Ewa was sometimes affectionately called Kāī o ‘Ewa.

“I think it (wetlands) went all the way behind the Barbers Point beach area. … We’d go swim in the ponds back there, it was pretty deep, about two feet, and the birds were all around. … It seems like when there were storms out on the ocean, we’d see them come into the shore, but they’re not around anymore.”

“The wet land would get bigger when there was a lot of rain, and we had so much fun in there, but now the water has nearly all dried up. They even used to grow wet-land taro in the field behind the elementary school area when I was young. (Arline Wainaha Pu‘ulei Brede-Eaton, Maly Interview)

”… Bountiful taro fields covered the plain and countless coconut palms, with several huts in their shade beautified the country side. … The taro fields, the banana plantations, the plantations of sugar cane are immeasurable.” (A Botanist’s Visit to Oahu in 1831, Journal of Dr FJF Meyen, Maly)

“This district, unlike others of the island, is watered by copious and excellent springs that gush out at the foot of the mountains. From these run streams sufficient for working sugar-mills. In consequence of this supply, the district never suffers from drought, and the taro-patches are well supplied with water by the same means.” (Commander Charles Wilkes, 1840-1841, Maly)

“Rev. Artemas Bishop, in the summer of 1836, removed with his wife and two children from Kailua, Hawaii, to Ewa, Oahu. … Throughout the district of Ewa the common people were generally well fed. Owing to the decay of population, great breadths of taro marsh had fallen into disuse, and there was a surplus of soil and water for raising food.” (SE Bishop, The Friend, May 1901)

As in other areas, kalo loʻi converted to rice patties. “These days at ‘Ewa, the planting of rice is spreading among the Chinese and the Hawaiians, from Hālawa to Honouliuli and beyond. There will come a day when the mother food, taro, shall not be seen on the land.” (Ka Lahui Hawaii, May 3, 1877, Maly)

Of course, in our discussion of the ʻEwa Moku, we need to remember that it ran from Hālawa to Honouliuli and circled Pearl Harbor. Much of the watered wetland taro was produced off of streams from the Koʻolau; however, there is considerable mention of the wetland taro of Honouliuli (what we generally refer to today as ʻEwa.)

October 3, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kawaihae

Kamehameha had granted Kawaihae Komohana ahupua‘a (present Kawaihae 1) to Kalanimōku, his “prime minister;” Kawaihae Hikina (present Kawaihae 2) was one of several ahupuaʻa on Hawai‘i and other islands allocated to John Young by Kamehameha.

Kamehameha had a house here. Following his death and the succession of Liholiho to rule as Kamehameha II, Kawaihae served as the initial Royal Center for Liholiho, who sought consolidation of his forces and consecration of his leadership role, there. (Kelly)

Then, as now, the area was relatively barren and people typically lived near the shore, not up the hill. As noted in 1832, by missionary Lorenzo Lyons in his journal, “about as desolate a place as I have ever seen, nothing but barrenness, with here and there a native hut”.

The area is also generally referenced as Pelekane, which means ‘British,’ possibly named after the Young and Isaac Davis families that lived there (when Davis died in 1810, his friend and co-advisor to Kamehameha, John Young, looked after Davis’ children.)

These were not the only high-ranking people associated with Kawaihae during the first decades of the 19th century. Kamāmalu, daughter of Kamehameha and Kaheiheimālie was born at Pelekane (ca 1802.)

She would later become the wife of her half-brother Liholiho (Kamehameha II,) the son of Kamehameha and the high chiefess Keōpūolani (Kamāmalu died of measles in London with Liholiho in 1825.) Some suggest Queen Emma (granddaughter of John Young) was also born here.

Over time, Kawaihae and Waimea (up the hill) developed a synergistic relationship. The area was a canoe landing area, whether for commerce or combat. (This is where Maui’s chief Kamalālāwalu landed in his assault against Lonoikamakahiki’s Hawaiʻi forces (Lono won.) But Kawaihae’s presence was really focused on commerce as a landing site.

Archibald Menzies, reporting on Vancouver’s third layover at Kawaihae Bay in March 1793 after leaving Kealakekua Bay, recorded that Young and Davis had accompanied “us thither (i.e. to Kawaihae) on purpose to make presents of hogs and vegetables…from their plantations, which lay near this part of the island…” (Menzies, Cultural Surveys)

Young built a storehouse in his family compound. During the sandalwood trade, Young supervised royal warehouses that were the central depository for the wood brought in from the surrounding district.

William Ellis, in 1831 wrote, “Before daylight on the 22d, we were roused by vast multitudes of people passing through the district from Waimea with sandalwood, which had been cut in the adjacent mountains for Karaimoku (Kalanimōku,) by the people of Waimea, and which the people of Kohala, as far as the north point …”

“… had been ordered to bring down to his storehouse on the beach, for the purpose of its being shipped to Oahu. There were between two and three thousand men, carrying each from one to six pieces of sandalwood, according to their size and weight.”

Another early foreign visitor to Kawaihae was Frenchman, Louis Claude Desaulses de Freycinet, in 1819; he met Liholiho here. Following closely in the wake of Freycinet’s visit of 1819 were the American missionaries, who stopped first at Kawaihae on April 1, 1820 (before heading down to Kailua-Kona.) They were met by Kalanimōku and his wives and two of Kamehameha’s widows (Kalākua and Namahana.)

During subsequent decades, other missionaries visiting Hawai‘i Island would record their impressions of the life and landscape of the 19th-century Kawaihae region. According to Rev. William Ellis, who, along with other missionaries, stopped at Kawaihae in 1823, the village in the early 1820s contained one hundred houses.

Ellis noted the same salt pans mentioned by Archibald Menzies in 1793 and described the salt-making operations he witnessed: “The natives of this district manufacture large quantities of salt, by evaporating the sea water. We saw a number of their pans, in the disposition of which they display great ingenuity.”

“(T)he Sandwich Islanders eat (salt) very freely with their food, and use much in preserving their fish. … The surplus … they dispose of to vessels touching at the islands, or export to the Russian settlements on the north-west coast of America, where it is in great demand for curing fish, &c.” (Ellis)

The salt also came in handy with the region’s supplying whalers with fresh and salt beef that called to the Islands, as well as the later Gold Rushers of America. Here is where Samuel Parker (of the later Parker Ranch fame) started out as a cattle hunter to fill those needs.

Increasing demand for meat, hides and tallow prompted Kuakini, governor of Hawai‘i Island, to establish a residence (and corrals) at Waimea in 1830. After having difficulty traversing the rocky trail from Waimea to Kawaihae, he “wisely sentenced forty persons guilty of violating the seventh commandment (committing adultery”) to construct a road connecting the two.

About this time, 2-wheeled Mexican ox carts started to appear; they were used to transport the meat and other goods between Waimea and Kawaihae (lots of white and sweet potatoes were grown in Waimea for export to California during the Gold Rush.)

As the area continued to grow and develop, most of the residential and commercial buildings that comprised Kawaihae Town continued to be located close to the shoreline of the bay; the uplands of the Kawaihae region remained undeveloped pasture land. (Cultural Surveys)

The WWII years brought dramatic change. The vast isolated plains of Waimea were viewed as an ideal location for a troop training center and in the spring of 1942 an army recruit camp was built there. The recruits were followed by the Second and Fifth Marine Divisions that recuperated and trained at Waimea. At its height, the Waimea camp (later dubbed Camp Tarawa,) consisting of tents and Quonset huts set on thousands of acres, housed up to 40,000 men.

Troops were shipped in and out through Kawaihae. At the southern end of the bay, in Kawaihae 2, amphibious landing exercises were conducted and military emplacements were set up in the area of Puʻukohola Heiau.

The war in the Pacific had been over less than a year when on April 1, 1946, an earthquake off the Aleutian Islands caused a tsunami that devastated the Hawaiian Islands. Although no lives were lost at Kawaihae, its effects wiped out commercial fishing activity there and it was reported that the tsunami “…was the beginning of the end for the Kawaihae Fishing Village. People left.” (Cultural Surveys)

By the 1950s, the need for improved harbor facilities at Kawaihae was apparent. The old landing had been destroyed in the 1946 tsunami and the one built in 1937 had proven unsafe in high seas. The Kawaihae Deep-Draft Harbor project was authorized by the US Congress in 1950 and finally dedicated on October 5, 1959.

The harbor’s construction was hailed as an “economic shot in the arm,” for sugar planters in the Kohala region of the island would no longer have to ship their crops overland to Hilo or to Kailua-Kona. The harbor would serve military needs as well. The Army was about to acquire a 100,000-acre training site nearby and could unload supplies at Kawaihae Harbor. (Cultural Surveys)

On August 17, 1972, the US Congress authorized the designation of Puʻukohola Heiau as a National Historic Site. This site also encompasses Mailekini Heiau; Hale O Kapuni Heiau (a submerged “shark” heiau;) Pōhaku o Alapaʻi ku palupalu mano (a stone on the beach where chief Alapaʻi leaned against while watching sharks circling around offerings placed at the submerged heiau;) Pelekane (Kamehameha’s Kawaihae residence) and the site of John Young’s house.

September 30, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kapaʻakea Spring

It was once a perched water-table pond and spring.

It was originally known as Kumulae Spring (Pond – also Kapaʻakea and later Hausten Spring/Pond) and was reportedly the property of Kamāmalu (sister of Kamehameha IV and V.) She and her brothers loved swimming in the pond; they and others shared food and drinks there.

The spring is the subject of an old legend that tells of a wondrous princess upon whom men’s eyes were forbidden to gaze. The princess loved the waters of the spring and from time to time she would go there at night and bathe. In time, the waters of the spring became known for its healing powers. (Kanahele)

As in much of Oʻahu, geologically, the bedrock is actually reef limestone. Lava from the upslope Sugarloaf covered the limestone and cooled (with a thickness of about 40-feet.) After cooling of the Sugarloaf lava, alluvium and marshy lagoon sediments accumulated atop much of the limestone. A few inches of soil covered the top. (Halliday)

Groundwater flow cut through the limestone forming a karstic drainage system (Karst being a geological formation shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, such as limestone.) This region, in and around the lower portions of the University of Hawaiʻi, became part of the Mōʻiliʻili Karst. Caverns and perched water-table springs and ponds were exposed at the surface.

The best-known of theses ponds was Kumulae. By the early-1920s, Mr. Hausten purchased and cleared the land, and stocked the pond with koi which interbred with existing fish. The large clear fishpond quickly became a noted attraction.

It was the family’s garden home with beautiful tropical gardens of flora and fauna. Emma McGuire “Ma” Hausten was an avid gardener and planted white ginger, water lilies, plumeria from the South Seas, willow trees, kukui trees, breadfruit and fruit trees as well as Hawaiian herbs and medical plants.

The gardens thrived and people asked if they might use the tropical setting for weddings, luaus and parties. Finally, in the mid-1930s limited private parties were held. (Willows)

Then, ‘tragedy’ happened. In the autumn of 1934, the Hausten pond disappeared without warning, draining in less than 24 hours.

It turns out, construction activities downslope from the King-University intersection struck a master conduit in the underground watered cave system. Water drained out. Upslope, the results of this dewatering were dramatic.

The master conduit was eventually resealed, the cave’s water table temporarily recharged, but the karst was never the same again. There have been several instances of collapses since the dewatering. One instance in 1952 involves the Standard Trading store falling through the ground into the karst below it. Another instance involves the emergence of a large cavern downslope from the King-University intersection.

During World War II, times were tough. An offer was made for the property; but instead of selling, the family decided to serve light lunches and drinks. In 1944, the Willows Restaurant opened as a club by Emma’s daughter, Kathleen Perry, along with husband Al (30-year musical director of Hawaii Calls,) her brothers Allan and Walter McGuire and other family members. Together, they presided over a gracious era of Hawaiian music and hospitality during the late-1940s and 1950s. (Willows)

But after the dewatering, the historic pond was never the same, the continuing drop in the water table especially impacted the Willows Restaurant. The willow trees wilted and the restaurant lost its attractiveness and its customers.

New sinkholes developed. “People living in the vicinity made their way into the caves through holes in their yards and speared fish by the hundreds.” Several houses “lurched” and settled. Sidewalks cracked and water and gas mains ruptured. Some trees sank almost 3-feet. (Halliday)

The spring dried up and a remnant of the pond had to be lined with concrete. A manmade water feature surrounded by rock and plants has been built to recreate the ambience of the old days.

In 1998, the site was sold and restored. The Willows re-opened its doors on the threshold of a new millennium in 1999, after six years of being closed. It closed again in 2018 and is now operated as a venue and event space with catering.