Place Names | Page 82 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 5, 2021 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Kalama Beach Park

“Hardware is one of the best businesses there is. I like that line, I was brought up in it. Axes and hammers don’t go out of style like so many other things.” This quotation was published in the Rocky Mountain News in April of 1934, when Charles Boettcher’s business enterprises had turned him into a national figure.

Charles was born into the hardware business; his parents, Frederick and Susanna Boettcher, ran a hardware store in Kolleda, Germany. When Charles finished Gymnasium (secondary school) his parents sent him to America to visit his older brother Herman, who was working in a hardware store in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Once in America, Charles admired the western landscapes and was soon working alongside Herman at Hoyer & Company Hardware. As a fringe benefit, he was allowed to sleep under the store counter. Charles figured out early that he was better off saving his money than spending it foolishly in the town saloons.

Charles as his partner, and in the summer of 1871 the brothers acquired another new store, this time in Evans, Colorado, just four miles from Greeley. Less than a year later, Charles moved to the new agricultural colony, Fort Collins. In Fort Collins, Charles met and married Fannie Augusta Cowan.

During their first year of marriage the couple moved south, to Boulder, where Charles opened the first hardware store in his own name. The Boulder store was so prosperous that Charles was able to build a large new building at 12th and Pearl, in the young town’s central commercial district (it’s still there).

By the end of the 1880s Charles Boettcher owned multiple hardware businesses and had his hand in mining, electricity, ranching, and banking.

In 1892, two years after the Boettchers moved to Denver, Henry C. Brown, along with two partners, Maxcy Tabor and William Bush, turned a triangular cow pasture at Seventeenth and Champa into the finest hotel in the West, the Brown Palace. Unfortunately for the partners, only a year after construction was complete the Silver Panic of 1893 hit.

In 1922, Horace Bennett and his associates, including Charles Boettcher, purchased the still-struggling hotel. After the crash of 1929, Bennett was forced to liquidate his interest, and Charles and Claude Boettcher became the hotel’s sole proprietors.

In the 1890s his interests would grow to include a meat packing company, a railroad, and Capitol Life Insurance. He started Colorado’s first sugar beet factory and formed Great Western Sugar.

The second generation of Colorado pioneers came of age in the 1890s. Claude graduated from Harvard and returned to

Denver and dedicated himself to expanding his father’s enterprises.

In 1908, Denver witnessed the completion of its first reinforced concrete building at the corner of Seventeenth and Champa, built by Charles Boettcher to promote the use of cement.

After two decades of progress Ideal Cement had plants all over the West and the cement industry had led Charles and his son Claude into a variety of other industries, most importantly, potash. After Charles’ death, Ideal merged with Potash of America and became Ideal Basic Industries.

As Claude’s only child, Charles Boettcher II grew up with all the advantages wealth brings. After completing his education, Charles too returned to Denver and began participating in the management of the family’s empire.

Charles II became a partner in Boettcher & Company in the 1920s, was involved in the Ideal Cement Company, and eventually inherited most of the offices formerly held by his father and grandfather at many Boettcher enterprises.

Then, one evening in 1933 (occurring the year after the Lindbergh kidnapping), Charles II and his wife, Anna Lou Boettcher, returned home from a dinner party and were accosted in their garage.

Charles II was held at gunpoint while another man passed a ransom note to Mrs. Boettcher. The kidnappers then sped away with

Charles II. Charles II was held for two weeks while Claude tried to make contact with the kidnappers. After Claude paid the $60,000 ransom, Charles was released. (Boettcher Foundation)

Needless to say, it was unsettling for everyone in the family. Apparently Charles and his wife, Mae, then started looking for a place that was far away from and far different than their surroundings in Denver.

So in 1935 they found the property in Hawaii – 4 acres of prime land on Kailua Beach. It was to be their get-away-from-it-all vacation home. (Cheever)

Charles II commissioned Vladimir Ossipoff to build him a house; it was designed by Ossipoff and built by contractor M. Kiuchi. (HHF)

Ossipoff came to Hawaii in late 1932. The Russian-born architect was educated at the University of California at Berkeley and had worked in San Francisco prior to moving to Hawaii.

Ossipoff started his architectural career in the islands as the head of the Home Building Department of Theo H. Davies. He also worked in architect C.W. Dickey’s office prior to starting his own practice in 1936.

Ossipoff’s work is characterized by its mixture of Hawaiian influenced design and more modern trends, such as the ranch style of house for domestic commissions. (National Register)

The one-story house has a distinctive steeply-pitched, cross-hip, “Hawaiian-style” roof, covered with shakes. The building’s U-shaped plan wraps around an in-set lanai supported by coral stone columns. The open side of the U faces the mountains, protecting the lanai from the prevailing onshore winds.

The home’s design combines many elements of indoor/outdoor living associated with the architecture of Hawaii during this period. The bath and dressing rooms open directly to the exterior, and the large lanai has a fireplace. (HHF)

The Boettcher family lived in Colorado and came to Hawaii for their holidays. During World War II, the family opened their home to the US Navy to use as Officers’ Quarters for the Waves. (National Register)

In September 1978 the City and County of Honolulu acquired the property for use as a park. It is now the central structure in the Kalama Beach Park.

October 1, 2021 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

‘E hoi kaua, he anu.

Let us return; ‘tis cold.’

The following is an account written by Hiram Bingham and his ascent with Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) in 1830 to the ‘frigid apex of Mauna Kea.’ What follows is pulled directly from Bingham’s ‘A Residence of Twenty-One Years in the Sandwich Islands.’

(T)he king set out with a party of more than a hundred, for an excursion further into the heart of the island, and an ascent to the summit of Mauna Kea. To watch over and instruct my young pupil, and to benefit my health, I accompanied him. The excursion occupied nearly five days, though it might have been accomplished much sooner.

Crossing in a southerly direction the plain of Waimea, some on horseback and some on foot, the party ascended a small part of the elevation of the mountain, and being in the afternoon enveloped in dense fog, they halted and encamped for the night.

The next day they passed over the western slope of the mountain to the southern side thence eastward along a nearly level plain, some seven thousand feet above the level of the sea, to a point south of the summit, and encamped out again, in the mild open air.

In the course of this day’s journey, the youthful king on horseback, pursued, ran down, and caught a yearling wild bullock, for amusement and for a luncheon for his attendants. A foreigner lassoed and killed a wild cow.

The next day was occupied chiefly in ascending in a northerly direction, very moderately. Our horses climbed slowly, and by taking a winding and zigzag course, were able, much of the way, to carry a rider. Having gained an elevation of about ten thousand feet, we halted and encamped for the night, in the dreary solitudes of rocks and clouds.

When the night spread her dark, damp mantle over us, we found ourselves in the chilly autumnal atmosphere of the temperate zone of this most stupendous Polynesian mountain. Below us, towards Mauna Loa, was spread out a sea of dense fog, above which the tops of the two mountains appeared like islands.

We found it a pretty cold lodging place. Ice was formed in a small stream of water near us, during the night. As the company were laying themselves down, here and there, upon the mountain side, for sleep, I observed that the king and Keoniani, subsequently premier, and a few others, having found a cave about four feet high, ten wide, and eight deep, made by a projecting rock, which would afford a shelter from a shower, and partially from wind and cold, had stretched themselves out to sleep upon the ground in front of it.

I was amused to see that their heads protruded somewhat more than six feet from the mouth of the cave, and asked, “Why do you not sleep under the rock, which is so good a sleeping house for you?”

Keoniani, always ready, replied, “We don’t know at what time the rock will fall.” Whether the apprehension that the firm rock might possibly fall upon the head of the king that night or their unwillingness that any ignoble foot should walk above it, or some other fancy, were the cause of his declining the shelter, did not appear.

In the morning we proceeded slowly upwards till about noon, when we came to banks of snow, and a pond of water partly covered with ice. In his first contact with a snow bank, the juvenile king seemed highly delighted. He bounded and tumbled on it, grasped and handled and hastily examined pieces of it, then ran and offered a fragment of it in vain to his horse.

He assisted in cutting out blocks of it, which were wrapped up and sent down as curiosities to the regent and other chiefs, at Waimea, some twenty-eight miles distant.

These specimens of snow and ice, like what are found in the colder regions of the earth, excited their interest and gratified their curiosity, and pleased them much; not only by their novelty, but by the evidence thus given of a pleasant remembrance by the youthful king.

After refreshing and amusing ourselves at this cold mountain lake, we proceeded a little west of north, and soon reached the lofty area which is surmounted by the ‘seven pillars’ which wisdom had hewed out and based upon it, or the several terminal peaks near each other, resting on what would otherwise be a somewhat irregular table land, or plain of some twelve miles circumference.

Ere we had reach’d the base of the highest peak, the sun was fast declining and the atmosphere growing cold. The king and nearly all the company declined the attempt to scale the summit, and passing on to the north-west crossed over, not at the highest point, and hastily descended towards Waimea.

John Phelps Kalaaulana, who had been in New England, the only native in the company who seemed inclined to brave the cold and undertake the labor of reaching the top, accompanied me, and we climbed to the summit of the loftiest peak.

The side of it was composed of small fragments of lava, scoria, and gravel lying loose and steep. The feet sank into them at every step. Our progress was slow and difficult, by a zigzag and winding course. Respiration was labored, and the air taken into the lungs seemed to supply less aid or strength than usual.

I repeatedly laid myself down panting to take breath and rest my exhausted muscles. On gaming the lofty apex, our position was an awful solitude, about 14,500 feet above the level of the sea, where no animal or vegetable life was found. No rustling leaf, or chirping bird, or living tenant of the place attracted the eye or ear.

Maui could be distinctly seen at the distance of one hundred miles over the mountains of Kohala. The immense pile of lava, once chiefly fluid, which constitutes the stupendous Mauna Loa, rose in the south-west, at the distance of thirty miles, to a height nearly equal to that of Mauna Kea, where we stood. Very light clouds occasionally appeared above us.

Down towards the sea over Hilo and Hamakua the clouds were dark and heavy, floating below our level, and towards the north, were apparently rolling on the earth to the westward towards Waimea and Kawaihae, while the wind on our summit was in the opposite direction.

As the sun disappeared the cold was pinching. We occasionally cringed under the lee of the summit for a momentary relief from the chilling blast. While taking some trigonometrical observations my fingers were stiffened with the cold, and Phelps repeatedly cried out with emphasis, ‘E hoi kaua, he anu. Let us return; ’tis cold.’

The image is a drawing of Mauna Kea, as seen from Waimea (Harry Wishard.)

Mauna Kea Wishard

May 31, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Transformation of Waimea, South Kohala, Hawaiʻi

Over the centuries, and even today, Waimea was an attractive draw with ideal climate and soils, and moderate distance from the ocean.

Still holding remnants of a cowboy town, it looked very different in centuries past – with transformation of forest lands, to agricultural fields, to pasture lands.

Now upper pasture land, archaeologists and others suggest the upper slopes of Waimea was a forest made up of ʻōhiʻa, koa, māmane, ʻiliahi (sandalwood) and other trees. Pili grass and shrubs were also found.

Within these forested uplands, you could find a variety of forest birds, ʻiʻiwi, ʻelepaio, ʻapapane and others. Fossil remains of a flightless goose have been found in the region.

This is what the earliest settlers to the region probably saw (however, it is likely the first settlers on the island probably first lived in the valleys on the wetter windward side of the island and others later came to Waimea.)

The forests had general characteristics of an open canopy and the appearance of a wooded parkland, particularly when contrasted with the grassy plains to the west and the dense “impenetrable” rainforest to the east. (McEldowney)

Statements typifying these characteristics, generally made while enroute from the Waimea settlements, through Parker’s ranch house at Mana, and along Mauna Kea’s eastern slope, include: “a scanty forest” (The Polynesian 1840); “those parts of the plain adjoining Hāmākua are better wooded having a parklike appearance” (Sandwich Islands Gazette 1836) …

… “well shaded by clumps of trees” (The Polynesian 1847); and is “thickly wooded with large trees, entirely free from underbrush, and is covered with a greensward, giving it the appearance of a parkland” (The Polynesian 1848.) (McEldowney)

Reverend Lorenzo Lyons (missionary leader of Waimea’s Imiola Church and songwriter who composed “Hawaiʻi Aloha”) frequently described his home as ʻAla ʻŌhiʻa Nei (home of the fragrant ʻōhiʻa lehua.) (Paris)

The population began to increase dramatically around 1100 AD and the west side population doubled every century. (Kirch) The population of the islands reached a peak in about 1650 AD, with a total of several hundred thousand.

Waimea’s initial population (probably first settling in the 1100s – 1200s) likely grew into a fairly large community. Settlement areas expanded into the hillsides and out onto the drier Waimea plains.

As permanent settlements were established and populations grew, to feed the people and increase the amount of arable land, the leeward slopes and valleys were cleared of the native forest and replaced by intensively cultivated field systems. (Watson)

Field walls (kuaiwi) delineated garden plots (Kihāpai) and helped retain the soil. Fields were irrigated using canals (ʻauwai) that tapped the Waimea streams. (Watson)

Once the advantages of living in Waimea were known, the population quickly grew. Terraced agricultural plots expanded and more of the forest was removed.

The upper slopes of Waimea are said to have supported more than 10,000-people prior to contact.

Post-contact brought further changes – two major modern land-use practices transformed the landscape – first, the harvesting of sandalwood, which was shortly-followed by the management of the cattle herds.

Various references establish the importance of sandalwood, the most famous of early historic export commodities, in the Waimea region, while remarks such as, these “woods frequented by sandalwood cutters” suggest exploitable sandalwood was in the region’s māmane/koa forests. (McEldowney)

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.”

In 1856, while editor of the Sandwich Islands’ Monthly Magazine, Abraham Fornander wrote an article arguing that large cattle herds had altered or ameliorated the climate of Waimea by destroying a “thick wood” that covered “the whole of the plain” as early as 1825 or 1830 (Sandwich Islands’ Monthly Magazine 1856). (McEldowney)

All of this forever changed Waimea. Once the native forests were cleared, the “natural” landscape of Waimea ceased to exist. (Watson)

Early Hawaiians first altered the landscape by clearing the forest and plotting out agricultural fields; later, introduced species took over.

A notable introduced (and invasive) plant to Waimea is fountain grass; it was introduced on the island of Hawaiʻi as an ornamental plant in the 1920s. It spread quickly and today, less than a century later, fountain grass is a dominant species along roadsides and in undeveloped areas on the leeward side of the island. (Watson)

Waimea, we used to call it home – I miss it.

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House before KTA commercial area developed

Waimea_Cherry_Blossoms-(clarkhawaii-com)

May 27, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kolo Wharf

In 1907, McNeill & Libby started its first fruit cannery in Sunnyvale, California. It quickly became the largest employer with a predominantly female workforce.

In the early 1900s, it established a pineapple canning subsidiary in Hawaiʻi and began to advertise its canned produce using the ‘Libby’s’ brand name. Unlike the other bigger pineapple producers, Libby did not start in Central Oʻahu, it started in Windward O‘ahu.

Libby’s pineapple covered the southern portion of Kāne’ohe, what is now the Pali Golf Course, Hawaiian Memorial Park and the surrounding area. By 1923, it was evident that pineapple cultivation on the Windward area could not keep up with that in other O‘ahu areas.

Then, Libby began to grow pineapple on land leased from Molokaʻi Ranch; their activities were focused primarily in the Kaluakoʻi section of the island. Lacking facilities and housing, the plantation began building clusters of dwellings (“camps”) around Maunaloa.

By 1927, it started to grow into a small town – as pineapple production grew, so did the town. By the 1930s, more that 12 million cases of pineapple were being produced in Hawaiʻi every year; Libby accounted for 23 percent.

There were two main pineapple growers on Molokai, Libby, situated on the west side at Maunaloa and California Packing Corporation (later known as Del Monte) in Kualapuʻu in the central part of Molokaʻi.

Then steps in a fledgling Hawaiʻi company, also seeing expansion opportunities, and it was through shipment of Libby’s pineapple from Molokaʻi to Libby’s processing plant in Honolulu that Young Brothers expanded into the freight business.

In 1900, three brothers, William, Herbert and Jack, got into business along Honolulu’s waterfront. What started out working small, odd jobs running lines, delivering supplies and providing harbor tours ended up to be a company that has played an important role in the maritime community of the State.

In those days, there might be from five to twenty sailing ships off Sand Island. When a ship came in, the anchor line had to be run out to secure the ship; if the ship was coming to the dock, a line had to be carried to the pier.

In the early years of the company, the brothers carried supplies and sailors to ships at anchor outside the harbor, as well as run lines for anchoring or docking vessels. They also gave harbor tours and took paying passengers to participate in shark hunts.

Libby’s need to ship fruit from the growing area on Molokaʻi, to pineapple processing on Oʻahu created an opportunity for the brothers. The brothers, using their first wooden barges, YB1 and YB2, hauled pineapples from Libby’s wharf to Honolulu. “That’s how (Young Brothers) started the freight.” (Jack Young Jr)

Libby constructed paved roads, a warehouse and worker housing in Maunaloa. In addition, they dredged a harbor and built a wharf at Kolo on the south-west side of the Island (between what is now Hale O Lono and Kaunakakai.)

“A natural channel thru the coral reef was blown and dredged to give a minimal depth of nine feet with two hundred feet width. Spar buoys mark the outer and inner ends of this channel.”

“The wharf is a heavily built wooden structure, having a road constructed for heavy truck traffic between it and the plantation on the summit of Mauna Loa. The only buildings at Kolo are those of the construction camp.” (Dept of Commerce, 1925)

Back then, there was competition in hauling freight. “The Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co, established in 1883, own(ed) and operate(d) a fleet of first-class vessels engaged exclusively in the transportation of passengers and freight between ports on the islands of the Hawaiian group.” (Annual Report of the Governor, 1939)

Regular sailings of passenger vessels are maintained from Honolulu four times weekly to ports on the island of Hawaiʻi, four times weekly to Molokaʻi, twice weekly to Kauaʻi, three times weekly to Lānaʻi and daily, except Monday and Saturday, to ports on the island of Maui. Included in the fleet are 12 passenger and freight vessels.” (Report of the Governor, 1930)

During the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, Inter-Island Steam Navigation had the SS Haleakalā, Hualālai, Kilauea and Waiʻaleʻale. There were others that carried 12-passengers such as the SS Humuʻula, which was primarily a cattle boat. “(Inter-Island) would run their passenger ships and heave to off Kaunakakai. And it would be passengers and mail which just went (ashore) by boat.” (Jack Young Jr)

But those vessels had deeper drafts than the shallow barges and couldn’t service Kolo; “Kolo was a very shallow draft channel, and it was a privately owned port, owned entirely by Libby McNeil & Libby. They had bigger acreage on the west end. That was a shorter haul for them. But the bulk of Libby’s pineapples came from Maunaloa which was shipped out of Kolo.” (Jack Young Jr)

To handle the conditions there, Young Brothers had a special tender built, the ‘Kolo.’ “My father had the Kolo built for that. He had the propellers swung into the hull of the launch because of the shallow depth. … The tug had to remain off port.” (Jack Young Jr)

With expanded freight service to Molokaʻi (Kolo and Kaunakakai,) around 1929, Young Brothers initiated a practice of towing two barges with one tug and became known as tandem towing.

The system was pioneered because two barges were needed to serve Molokaʻi – they would drop one barge off at Kolo and then carry on to Kaunakakai; they’d pick up the Kolo barge on the way back to Honolulu.

Then, the 1946 tidal wave struck. “Libby would have to spend $1-million to restore it, and redredge it. And so instead of that they bought a fleet of trucks and hauled their fruit from Maunaloa to Kaunakakai. Everything went out of Kaunakakai, Libbys and (California Packing Corporation (later known as Del Monte.)) So Kolo was abandoned.” (Jack Young Jr)

The end of the pineapple era began in 1972 when Libby sold to Dole Corp and was finalized three years later when Dole closed its Maunaloa facility. The very last pineapple harvest took place in 1986. (West Molokai Association)

Young Brothers continues today. In 1999, Saltchuk Resources, Inc of Seattle, Washington, the parent company of Foss Maritime, acquired Young Brothers and selected assets of Hawaiian Tug & Barge. In 2013, Hawaiian Tug & Barge was rebranded and incorporated into the Foss Maritime fleet, while Young Brothers remains a wholly own subsidiary of Foss.

The youngest of the Young Brothers, “Captain Jack,” is my grandfather; several quotes in this piece include statements from my uncle, also known as Captain Jack.

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Young-Brothers-Captain_Jack_Young_(grandfather)_on_Makaala

May 19, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waimea Valley

The Ha‘i ‘ōlelo (oral history) of Waimea, according to Hawaiian historian Sam Kamakau (who was from Waialua, O‘ahu), begins with the high chief Kama Pua‘a. Kama Pua‘a, according to traditional history, was given a gift from the Kahuna Nui (high priest) Kahiki‘ula. This took place sometime in the eleventh century. (pupukeawaimea)

The gift was all the lands that begin with the word Wai. The word Waimea means “sacred water.” Prior to the eleventh century, little is known about the Kānaka (people) who lived in the ahupua‘a of Waimea. The valley may have been settled a lot earlier. (pupukeawaimea)

Waimea Valley is a cultural resource of the highest possible order … There is no place quite like Waimea Valley on the island of Oʻahu, and very few places in the entire archipelago can equal it in terms of its religious associations, its preservation or its potential for answering many questions about traditional Hawaiʻi. (Hiʻipaka)

Waimea, “The Valley of the Priests,” gained its title around 1090, when the ruler of Oʻahu, Kamapuaʻa (who would later be elevated in legend to demigod status as the familiar pig deity) awarded the land to the high priest Lono-a-wohi.

From that time until Western contact and the overturn of the indigenous Hawaiian religion, the land belonged to the kahuna nui (high priests) of the Pāʻao line. (Kennedy, OHA)

The valley is surrounded by three Heiau. Pu‘u o Mahuka (“hill of escape”) is located on the north side of the valley; it is the largest heiau on Oʻahu (covering almost 2 acres) and may have been built in the 1600s.

On the opposite side of the valley near the beach is Kūpopolo Heiau. In the valley is Hale O Lono, a heiau dedicated to the god Lono. Religious ceremonies to Lono were held during the annual Makahiki season to promote fertility of the resources.

After Captain Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay in 1779, Captain Charles Clerke took command of his ships, Resolution and Discovery. Searching to restock their water supply, they anchored off Waimea Bay in 1779. This was the first known contact of the white man on the island of Oʻahu.

Cook’s lieutenant, James King, who captained the Resolution, commented that the setting “… was as beautiful as any Island we have seen, and appear’d very well Cultivated and Popular.” (HJH)

King noted that the vista on this side of Oʻahu, “was by far the most beautiful country of any in the Group … the Valleys look’d exceedingly pleasant … charmed with the narrow border full of villages, & the Moderate hills that rose behind them.” (HJH)

Clerke wrote in his journal: “On landing I was reciev’d with every token of respect and friendship by a great number of the Natives who were collected upon the occasion; they every one of them prostrated themselves around me which is the first mark of respect at these Isles.” (Kennedy, OHA)

Clerke further noted, “I stood into a Bay to the W(est)ward of this point the Eastern Shore of which was far the most beautifull Country we have yet seen among these Isles, here was a fine expanse of Low Land bounteously cloath’d with Verdure, on which were situate many large Villages and extensive plantations; at the Water side it terminated in a fine sloping, sand Beach.”

“This Bay, its Geographical situation consider’d is by no means a bad Roadsted, being shelterd from the (winds) with a good depth of Water and a fine firm sandy Bottom, it lays on the NW side of this island of Wouahoo … surrounded by a fine pleasant fertile Country.” (HJH)

Waimea was a large settlement, though the actual number of inhabitants is unknown. With an almost constant water source and abundant fishing grounds, in addition to cultivation of traditional foods, Waimea was a classic example of the Polynesian managing natural resources. (pupukeawaimea)

Kamehameha took the island of O‘ahu in 1795, and he gave Waimea Valley to Hewahewa, his Kahuna Nui. He was the last Kahuna to preside over the heiau (temples) in the valley. Hewahewa died in 1837 and is buried in Waimea Valley. Waimea Valley has a total land area of approximately 1,875-acres and was originally part of the larger moku (district) of Koʻolauloa, but was added to the district of Waialua in the 1800s. (pupukeawaimea)

In 1826, Hiram Bingham, accompanied by Queen Kaʻahumanu, visited Waimea to preach the gospel and noted, “Saturday (we) reached Waimea … the residence of Hewahewa, the old high priest of Hawaiian superstition, by whom we were welcomed ….”

“The inhabitants of the place assembled with representatives of almost every district of this island, to hear of the great salvation, and to bow before Jehovah, the God of heaven.”

“There were now seen the queen of the group and her sister, and teachers, kindly recommending to her people the duties of Christianity, attention to schools, and a quiet submission, as good subjects, to the laws of the land.” (Bingham)

Reportedly, Waimea was a favored sandalwood source during the 1800s; cargo ships would anchor offshore to load sandalwood. However, by the 1830s, sandalwood was disappearing and soon the trade came to a halt.

From 1894 to 1898, a series of floods devastated the valley including homes and crops of approximately 1,000 Native Hawaiians. In 1929, Castle & Cooke acquired the land and leased it to cattle ranchers.

In the 1950s, sand was trucked from Waimea Bay Beach to replenish eroding sand at Waikīkī. Reportedly, over 200,000-tons of sand at Waimea Bay was removed to fill beaches in Waikīkī and elsewhere; there was so much sand that if you would have tried to jump off Pōhaku Lele, Jump Rock, you would have jumped about six feet down into the sand below.

From the 1970s through mid-1990s, Bishop Corporation (no affiliation with Bishop Estate) purchased Waimea and established Waimea Falls Park. For a 25-year period under the ownership of the Pietsch family, the valley was a commercial park with a restaurant and entertainment.

With financially faltering, the property was conveyed to New York investor and theme-park developer Christian Wolffer who envisioned an “adventure park,” which also failed. He later proposed a commercial attractions park and residential subdivision; the City Council gave preliminary approval to the deal. People complained.

The City & County of Honolulu later proceeded with a condemnation process to purchase the property. On June 30, 2006, the valley was purchased by a partnership of OHA, City & County of Honolulu, State Department of Land and Natural Resources, US Army and National Audubon Society.

Title passed to OHA; the remaining entities retained conservation easements over the property. I was happy to have represented the State in the arbitration negotiations on behalf of the State (after first putting $1.5-million of State funds into the pot, at the very last minute, the State made up a shortfall of $100,000, solidifying the closing of the deal.)

OHA formed Hiʻipaka LLC to own and operate Waimea Valley (kamaʻāina rates for admission are offered.) It’s a casual walk on a paved path through our World Class Botanical Gardens and Historical Sites up to our Waterfall area. The walk is ¾-mile one way or 1½-miles round trip. Visit their website: www.waimeavalley.net

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