California | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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)

“So many Hawaiians living in California! 1863.”

“O Kamaaina of my dear land of birth; Aloha oukou: – I was just in California, and came back. I had much interaction with Hawaiians living there, and I saw most of them who are living in that large land; and by asking, I obtained the names of some who I have not seen.”

“You maybe want me to tell you those who I came across there? You all answer, “‘Yes, that is a good thing indeed; we will find there brethren that were lost to us, who we mistakenly thought were dead; come to find out they are living in California.’”

“Yes, I will tell you, and I will also where they live; so that you all can write to them. Look carefully at the names of the places below, and that is what to write outside of the letter so that it goes straight; and one more thing, affix a Postage Stamp (Poo Leta), of five cents price.”

“The majority of Hawaiians in California move from place to place, and do not settle in one place, therefore accuracy of the list of names stated below is not certain, because some people may have moved away at this time.”

“There is one more thing before I stop. With the grace of the Lord, I intend to return to California next week, to carry on the word of God amongst the Indians and the Hawaiians in that land, and I ask of you, all of your brethren of this archipelago, pray hard to God that he makes the work progress among the kamaaina and malihini who live in California.”

“With much aloha, Gulick Jr. [Kulika Opio]. Honolulu, September 2, 1863.” (Kuokoa, 9/12/1863

The town of Vernon, located just south of the junction of the Feather and Sacramento Rivers and roughly eighteen miles to the north of Sacramento, was originally established as a trading center in 1849 for miners of the Feather and Yuba Rivers.

It was centrally connected to the various towns and mining communities in the gold-mining region by a network of rivers. Within a few short years it was superseded by Marysville in the north, a town that became an important metropolis of the Feather and Yuba river mines. (Farnham)

However, Vernon remained an active agricultural town until the late 19^th century. The evolution of Vernon as a Kanaka “fishing” colony appears to have its origins on the opposite side of the Sacramento River, at the former town known as Fremont in Yolo County.

In the nineteenth century Kanaka laborers were moving between the two neighboring communities regularly, up until 1870. (Farnham)

On April 17, 1861, just days after the US Civil War had commenced, an editor with Ka Hae Hawaii requested that immigrants in California respond to accusations by “Dr. Frick,” a Honolulu foreigner, that labor conditions in California mimicked the conditions of “na keiki hookaumahaia o Aperika” (burdened African children).

The editor asked:

Are you experiencing difficulties in your living conditions in Caifornia with regards to the justice system of the country?
Do you suffer difficulty due to the cold and the heat?
Do you suffer from famine and going without food or due to bad food in that country?
Are you without proper clothing, wool clothes and blankets?
Are you exhausted from the work you do there?
Do your foreign bosses burden you with difficulties?
Are you sad, lonely, uncomfortable in your living conditions there or not?
Are there sicknesses and vices that tempt the soul and body of man in that country, more so than the vices found here [in Hawaii]?

Only one Hawaiian, a fisherman by the name of Thomas B Kamipele (Campbell) living in Vernon, California, answered the newspaper’s inquiry. He wrote in part:

“I offer you an olive flower. Will you please take it to the four corners of your country so that parents, friends of those living here in California may know. . . “

“Life here is tiresome and one works hard, and you work hard everyday but do not realize expansion [wealth], but experience hunger as your reward for the day.”

“Recent years have seen better times here in California.”

“These years in which we live, everyone living up in the mountains digs for gold, but do not get a worthy pay for the effort. What they earn is the pangs of hunger and a want of food and fish.”

“And because of this lack [of pay] they cannot return to their homeland. It is just as it is said in letters of the those who write to their friends living here in California.” (Ka Hae Hawaii, July 3, 1861, Farnham)

“Perhaps more importantly, Kamipele indicated that many immigrants had become frustrated with contract employment in California. “Ka hana hoolimalima me na haku haole, ua pili aku no i ke ano o na kauwa hooluhi” (The act of contract labor with white owners is very much like hard slavery), he explained.”

“He cited as an example: ‘One white man, Coneki, brought some Hawaiians from the homeland, about fifty of them in total. Among that group was Kekuaiwahie and Kapua‘a who worked with their boss for six months. They were not paid at all for their labor. They left and each went their separate ways.” (Farnham)

“Just as in Hawaii, Kanaka Hawai’i laborers in California were beginning to reject contract work with haole employers in favor of independent work in more ideal environments. The Sacramento River of the Central Valley offered one such environment.” (Farnham) (Lots here is from April Farnham.)