Amfac | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 25, 2018 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Amfac Center

The story of Hawai‘i’s largest companies dominates Hawaiʻi’s economic history. Since the early/mid-1800s, until relatively recently, five major companies emerged and dominated the Island’s economic framework. Their common trait: they were focused on agriculture – sugar.

They became known as the Big Five: C. Brewer (1826;) Theo H Davies (1845;) American Factors (Amfac) – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and Alexander & Baldwin (1870.)

“By 1941, every time a native Hawaiian switched on his lights, turned on the gas or rode on a street car, he paid a tiny tribute into Big Five coffers.” (Alexander MacDonald, 1944) Things changed.

On June 3, 1968, the first increment of Mililani’s single-family homes went on sale; 112 houses were originally offered for purchase at $25,000 to $35,000 each.

In its time, Mililani was one of the biggest signifiers that the Big Five were abandoning agriculture in Leeward and Central Oahu in favor of suburban development. Castle & Cooke created Mililani out of pineapple fields it had owned since 1948. (In 1976, the H-2 Freeway opened.)

On June 19, 1970, following the changes in travel that the introduction of jetliners in 1959 made another Big Five company, Alexander & Baldwin, was seeing changes. Just 6-years previously, A&B bought out the interests of other Big Five ownership in Matson (Castle & Cook, C Brewer and Amfac). (NY Times)

In 1970, A&B’s Matson line’s Lurline had her last voyage – it was the end of the era (dating back to 1933) of Matson’s 5-day luxury liner travel between Hawai‘i and the West Coast, and the end of Boat Days at Honolulu Harbor. (Honolulu Magazine)

About this time, other changes were going on in downtown Honolulu, around the waterfront – Amfac was redeveloping its headquarters building.

Previously (1901), Amfac-predecessor Hackfeld built a stone and concrete building that covered the mauka-Ewa corner of the block and had its main public entrance on the Queen-Fort Street corner, beneath a fourth-level dome.

Another entry closer to the harbor on the Fort Street side opened to the company’s three floors of offices, many occupied by managers and clerks for the once immense operations of one of the largest of Hawai‘i’s Big Five sugar companies.

Oliver Traphagen came up with a both ornate and solid design for U-shaped structure to extend the whole of the Fort Street frontage and continued in along the Queen Street and Halekauwila Street (now Nimitz) sides.

The project was completed in March 1902. For over half a century, the Hackfeld Building (later renamed American Factors (Amfac) Building) dominated the harbor edge of downtown Honolulu. (Fort Street Mall)

Then, starting in the late-1960s, Amfac was redeveloping its headquarters in a joint venture (under the name Center Properties) with Seattle developer Richard H Hadley. The new complex eventually filled the entire block bounded by Bishop, Queen Fort and Halekauwila (now Nimitz) Streets.

The new complex, named Amfac Center, was built in two distinct phases between 1968 and 1971; the towers are marble-faced skyscrapers, now recognized as late International Style or, alternatively, as “Formalist.”

The first of the two 20-story buildings, the Amfac Tower (Amfac Building), was completed in 1968 at the corner of Bishop and Halekauwila (now Nimitz) streets.

The old stone Hackfeld/Amfac Building came down in 1969 to prepare for the construction of the second of the two Amfac Center buildings, the Hawaii Tower (Hawaii Building), completed in 1971.

After subsequent sales of controlling interests in the company and liquidation of land and other assets, in 2002, the once dominant business in Hawaiʻi, the biggest of the Hawaiʻi Big Five, Amfac Hawaiʻi, LLC filed for federal bankruptcy protection. (TGI)

That year, John Edward Anderson, purchased the Amfac Center and renamed it the Topa Financial Center. Topa comes from the Topatopa mountain range in Ojai, east of Santa Barbara, California, where Anderson has a ranch of the same.

Topa means gopher in the language of the Chumash, American Indians who live in the Santa Barbara area. As part of the name change, Amfac’s 20-story twin towers were renamed the East Tower and West Tower. (Ruel)

(There is some suggestion that there is a connection between the Amfac Center and the former World Trade Center (completed in 1973), reportedly through the architect who was apparently associated with each. If so, more to come on that.)

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American Factors Building was demolished in 1970

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September 15, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Grand Canyon

“Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, and for all who come after you, as the only great sight which every American … should see.” (Teddy Roosevelt)

It was the home of a group of people that some call the Anasazi, a Navajo word for ‘Ancient Ones.’ About 2,000 years ago, the Pueblo people learned to survive in extremely harsh conditions and for more than 1,000 years thrived there. Then, they simply disappeared. (Shields)

The Hopi, Yavapai, Navajo, Apache, Zuni, Paiute (Kaibab,) Havasupai and Hualapai are among the tribes that call the canyon home, each with their own language, customs and beliefs. (NPS)

The Colorado River began carving a course to create the Grand Canyon, 4 to 6-million years ago. The nearly 300-river-miles long Colorado cut the 1-mile deep, 10-miles wide canyon, exposing rock and sediment formations that are nearly 2-billion years old. (Stampoulos)

In 1540, a Spanish Nobleman, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, led the first expedition of Europeans into the southwest, in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola that were reputed to contain great riches.

Spanish explorer Don Pedro de Tovar accompanied Coronado and led an expedition to Hopi country. Tovar is credited with as being the first European to learn of the existence of the Grand Canyon. But the Spanish left, unable to cross its impassable void.

Later, more foreigners came.

In 1869, Major John Wesley Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran and his nine companions became the first to record the 1,000-miles of the Green and Colorado River from Wyoming through the Grand Canyon. Powell was the first American to consistently use and publish the name, ‘Grand Canyon.’ (NPS)

Miners discovered valuable mineral resources in the Grand Canyon in the late-1800s; but extraction was dangerous and expensive. Mining claims waned and tourism increased.

In the early days, reaching the Grand Canyon was difficult. Initially, horses, mules, river rafts and stagecoaches brought people to the canyon. The 73-mile trip from Flagstaff to the canyon rim took 10 to 12-hours. (Stampoulos)

In 1876, the Santa Fe railroad was one of the fastest expanding railroads in the country. In 1889, Fred Harvey had a contract for exclusive rights to manage and operate the eating houses and lunch stands with the Santa Fe, west of the Missouri River.

Passengers on the Santa Fe ate well because of Harvey’s special refrigerated boxcar that supplied fresh California fruits and vegetables. He had ‘Harvey Girls’ (“young (unmarried) women between 18 and 30-years of age, of good character, attractive and intelligent”) as waitresses and salesgirls.

The Fred Harvey Company operated all of the hotels and restaurants along the Santa Fe railroad lines, as well as many dining cars. (Stampoulos)

Soon, the Santa Fe Railway (and others railways) reached the South Rim of the canyon. In 1901, Harvey died, and his son Ford Harvey took over the company. After Fred’s death, the company’s good reputation for fine food and service grew even more. (Armstrong)

Newspapers across the country heralded the passenger trains carrying visitors to the Grand Canyon; the story stirred public interest, instigating what would later become a ‘boom’ of visitors to the canyon – more than half of them arrived by train at the Santa Fe Station. (Shields)

The company decided to go ahead with plans for a first-class hotel at the Grand Canyon. Ford was in charge of what became the company’s crown jewel, the El Tovar Hotel (named after the early Spanish explorer) – the Charles Whittlesey-designed log structure opened its doors on the canyon rim (and at the rail station) on January 14, 1905.

The hotel soon became the mecca for travelers from all over the world. In order to serve the large number of visitors. The Fred Harvey Company had to maintain a fairly large staff. To accommodate them, men and women’s dormitories were built near the hotel.

The Harvey Company continued its growth well into the 20th century.

So, what’s the Hawai‘i connection? … In 1968, Amfac (one of Hawai‘i’s ‘Big Five’ companies) bought the Fred Harvey Company (and with it, the concession for El Tovar and other hotels, shops and activities at the Grand Canyon.)

Amfac had its beginning in the Islands when, on September 26, 1849, German sea captain Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld arrived in Honolulu with his wife, Marie, her 16-year-old brother Johann Carl Pflueger and a nephew BF Ehlers.

Hackfeld opened a general merchandise business (dry goods, crockery, hardware and stationery,) wholesale, as well as retail store.

Hackfeld later developed a business of importing machinery and supplies for the spreading sugar plantations and exported raw sugar. H Hackfeld & Co became a prominent factor – business agent and shipper – for the plantations.

A few years later, with the advent of the US involvement in World War I, things changed significantly for the worst for H Hackfeld & Co. In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government seized H Hackfeld & Company and ordered the sale of German-owned shares. (Jung)

The patriotic sounding “American Factors, Ltd,” the newly-formed Hawaiʻi-based corporation (whose largest shareholders included Alexander & Baldwin, C Brewer & Company, Castle & Cooke, HP Baldwin Ltd, Matson Navigation Company and Welch & Company,) bought the H Hackfeld stock. (Jung) At that same time, the BF Ehlers dry goods store also took the patriotic “Liberty House” name.

American Factors shortened its name to “Amfac” in 1966. The next year (1967,) Henry Alexander Walker became president and later Board Chairman of Amfac.

Over the next 15-years, Walker took Amfac from a company that largely depended on sugar production in Hawaiʻi to a broadly diversified conglomerate (which included the acquisition of the Fred Harvey Company in 1968.)

Later, the resort management company became known as Xanterra Parks and Resorts (the present concessionaire and operator of hotels (including El Tovar) and other functions at the Grand Canyon, and elsewhere.)

In 1893, President Benjamin Harrison established it as a forest reserve. On January 11, 1908, President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt placed the Grand Canyon under public protection, declaring it a national monument. Congress updated the Grand Canyon to national park status and doubled the protected area in 1975. It was named a World Heritage Site in 1979.

They say the average length of stay for visitors to the Grand Canyon is 3-hours; take some time to see and experience what some suggest is one of the 7 Wonders of the Natural World (Grand Canyon, Mount Everest, Northern Lights, Harbor at Rio de Janeiro, Great Barrier Reef, Paricutin and Victoria Falls) – it is something to behold, that neither words, nor pictures, can adequately describe.

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Tourist at the edge of the Grand Canyon, ca. 1914

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Grand View Trail, Grand Canyon, 1906

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Harvey Girls – Grand Canyon National Park – Fred Harvey Company

Grand Canyon Train

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El Tovar Hotel-facing Canyon

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April 20, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Walker Estate

Captain Heinrich Hackfeld was an adventurer born in Dalmenhorst, in Oldenberg, Germany. He was a sea captain on the China run when he sailed into Honolulu Harbor for provisions.

He stayed; he and his brother-in-law Johann Carl Pflueger founded a dry goods store called H Hackfeld and Company in 1849 in Honolulu. In 1881, Paul Isenberg became a partner.

George Rodiek was first vice president of H Hackfeld & Co; he also served as German consul in the Islands. In 1905, Rodiek built a two-story home with a series of garden featuring ferns, rocks and orchard in Nuʻuanu.

Then, WWI came (1914-1918.) In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government seized H Hackfeld & Company and ordered the sale of German-owned shares. (Jung)

The patriotic sounding “American Factors, Ltd,” the newly-formed Hawaiʻi-based corporation, whose largest shareholders included Alexander & Baldwin, C Brewer & Company, Castle & Cooke, HP Baldwin Ltd, Matson Navigation Company and Welch & Company, bought the H Hackfeld stock. (Jung)

The German-started H Hackfeld & Co became one of Hawaiʻi’s “Big Five.” (Hawaiʻi’s Big 5 were: Amfac – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Alexander & Baldwin (1870;) Theo H Davies (1845;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and C Brewer (1826.))

In 1918, Rodiek sold his Nuʻuanu home to Alan Wilcox who remained in it until the 1930s when it was taken over by Henry Alexander Walker (Walker became president of American Factors in the 1930s – American Factors shortened its name to “Amfac” in 1966.

The next year (1967,) Alexander’s son, Henry Alexander Walker became president and later Board Chairman. Over the next 15-years, Walker took Amfac from a company that largely depended on sugar production in Hawaiʻi to a broadly diversified conglomerate. After adding so many companies, Amfac sales were $1.3 billion by 1976, up from $575 million in 1971. (hbs-edu)

OK, back to the house … The nearly-6-acres of grounds were originally used for orchards and vegetables although the Japanese garden was put in shortly after the house was built (thought to be the oldest formal Japanese garden in Hawaiʻi,) the stones, lamps and images specially brought from Japan for it.

Wilcox expanded the gardens, but it was not until the Walkers took over the house that the grounds were made into a showplace. (NPS)

The Walkers turned the estate into world famous orchid gardens. Una Walker (Henry Sr’s wife) maintained the estate by making the grounds available for weddings and visitors and as a movie and television set.

The Walker residence is one of the few intact estates that were built in the upper Nuʻuanu Valley before and after the turn of the century. The Classical Revival style reflects an era of gracious living that for various reasons has passed from existence except in a few isolated cases. (NPS)

In 1973, the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places; in addition more that 20 of its trees are listed as exceptional trees. (Being on the register doesn’t mean that a private landowner cannot demolish a historic site.)

In 1989, two years after Una’s death, the house and its grounds were sold by the Walker heirs to Masao Nangaku of Minami Group (USA) Inc. His intention was to restore the original house to be used as a corporate retreat; he renovated the house.

After Nangaku experienced financial problems, Richard Fried and partners took the property over and, in 1998, asked for planning permission to build a chapel to facilitate weddings on the site.

When this was refused, the estate was sold to Holy-eye (the Hawaii business arm of Forshang World Foundation and Forshang Buddhism World Center) the same day.

In 2005, Holy-Eye listed the estate for sale. In June 2006, real-estate developer TR Partners attempted to purchase the estate and planned to demolish the building and subdivide up to 20-home sites.

In 2006, Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation listed the Walker Estate to that year’s Most Endangered Historic Site (listing there calls attention to Historic resources that are often threatened by demolition, neglect, ignorance and/or apathy.)

The Taiwan and US flags are flown at the entrance to the property.

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July 28, 2014 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

H Hackfeld

On September 26, 1849, sea captain Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld arrived in Honolulu with his wife, Marie, her 16-year-old brother Johann Carl Pflueger and a nephew BF Ehlers.

Having purchased an assorted cargo at Hamburg, Germany, Hackfeld opened a general merchandise business (dry goods, crockery, hardware and stationery,) wholesale, as well as retail store on Queen Street.

In 1850 he moved to a larger location on Fort Street. This store was so popular, it became known as “Hale Kilika” – the House of Silk (because it sold the finest goods available.) As business grew, the nephew took over management of the store while Hackfeld traveled the world for merchandise. The company took BF Ehlers’ name in 1862.

Hackfeld developed a business of importing machinery and supplies for the spreading sugar plantations and exported raw sugar. H Hackfeld & Co became a prominent factor – business agent and shipper – for the plantations.

Its shipping interest, manufacturing and jobbing lines developed a web of commercial relationships with Europe, England and the eastern seaboard of the US. German whalers were still sailing the Pacific in the 1850s and Hackfeld bought and outfitted several whalers, brought in Pacific Coast lumber beginning in 1855 and engaged in the trans-shipment trade.

By 1855, Hackfeld operated two stores, served as agent for two sugar plantations, and represented the governments of Russia, Sweden and Norway. (Later the firm or its principals also represented Austro-Hungary, Belgium and Germany.) When Hackfeld left on a two-year business trip to Germany and Pflueger took charge in his absence. (Greaney)

In 1871 Hackfeld and Pflueger both went back to Europe to launch a German affiliate in Bremen. There they placed into service a line of ships sailing under the Hawaiian flag between Bremen and Honolulu with wheat, oil, wool and hides for the Islands and sugar shipments on the way back.

The old Honolulu Courthouse site was advertised for sale at auction in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser of May 9, 1874; H Hackfeld & Co bought it at the upset price of $20,000. As reported by the Hawaiian Gazette, “It is the best business stand in Honolulu.”

Then, the Treaty of Reciprocity (1875) between the US and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market. Through the treaty, the US gained Pearl Harbor and Hawai‘i’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into US markets. Sugar boomed.

In 1881, Hackfeld and Paul Isenberg became partners. Isenberg, who had arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1858, had extensive experience in the sugar industry, previously working under Judge Duncan McBryde and Rev. William Harrison Rice in Kōloa and Lihuʻe.

From that time on Mr. Isenberg was a factor in the development of the Hackfeld business, which became one of the largest in Hawaiʻi.

Hackfeld became the first Swedish and Norwegian Consul in the Islands. In 1862, he returned to Hamburg, and afterwards to Bremen, where he settled and managed the business of H. Hackfeld & Co. there until 1886, when he retired from the firm. In 1886 Hackfeld sold his interest in the company and returned to Germany; he died there on October 20, 1887.

When the partnership was incorporated in 1897, a new building was erected at the corner of Fort and Queen Streets; it stood there for 70-years.

After the US annexation of Hawaii in 1898, Isenberg returned to Germany to live; however, he retained the role of president, with Hackfeld’s son, Johan (John) Friedrich Hackfeld serving as 1st vice president and Isenberg’s son, Alexander Isenberg as 2nd vice president.

John later took over; however, he, too, returned to Germany in 1900. His cousin, George F Rodiek, became the executive in charge of H Hackfeld & Co. (Weiner) In 1905, Rodiek built an estate in Nuʻuanu.

A few years later, with the advent of the US involvement in World War I, things changed significantly for the worst for the folks at H Hackfeld & Co.

In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government seized H Hackfeld & Company and ordered the sale of German-owned shares. (Jung)

The Alien Property Custodian’s Office noted, “The powerful German hold on the sugar industry of the Hawaiian islands has been crushed. The control of Hawaii’s most important industry has been restored to its people.”

“This is the effect of the announcement of A Mitchell Palmer, alien property custodian, that he had completed the Americanization of the H Hackfeld Co, the threat German owned corporation which for years has played so important a part in the sugar situation of the Hawaiian islands.”

“Mr. Palmer Americanized this German concern by … selling the entire assets and business of the German Hackfeld Co to (an) American company, whose stockholders are all loyal American citizens, most of them residents of the Hawaiian islands.” (Alien Property Custodian’s Office; Daily News Almanac, 1919)

(Hawaiʻi’s Big 5 were: Amfac – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Alexander & Baldwin (1870;) Theo H. Davies (1845;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and C. Brewer (1826.))

At that same time, the BF Ehlers dry goods store also took the patriotic “Liberty House” name. In 1937 a second store was opened in the Waikiki area. Eventually there would be seven stores on Oahu, and several more on the other islands.

During the 1970s, Liberty House expanded into California, Nevada and Washington, but the Washington stores were sold in 1979 and the California and Nevada locations were sold in 1984. In 2001, Federated Department Stores Inc bought Liberty House, Hawaiʻi’s oldest and largest department store chain, and turned it into Macy’s.

American Factors shortened its name to “Amfac” in 1966. The next year (1967,) Henry Alexander Walker became president and later Board Chairman. Walker bought the former Rodiek estate.

Over the next 15-years, Walker took Amfac from a company that largely depended on sugar production in Hawaiʻi to a broadly diversified conglomerate. After adding so many companies, Amfac sales were $1.3 billion by 1976, up from $575 million in 1971. (hbs-edu)

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