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May 21, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Haraguchi Rice Mill

The Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society was formed in 1850 to develop Hawaiʻi’s agricultural resources.  It was then that rice made its mark in the Hawaiʻi economy. The group purchased land in the Nuʻuanu Valley and rice seed from China and planted in a former taro patch.

At first the Society offered the rice seed to anyone in Hawaiʻi who wanted to plant it. King Kamehameha IV also offered land grants for cultivation of rice.  Because there were no proper milling facilities in Hawaiʻi, it didn’t take off as a viable crop right away.

Then, in 1860, imported rice seed from South Carolina proved very successful and yielded a fair amount of crop.  This, combined with the collapse of the taro industry in 1861-1862 (as the Hawaiian population declined, the demand for taro also declined,) added value to the numerous vacant taro patches and a boom in the rice industry.

In 1899, Hawaiʻi’s rice production had expanded so that it placed third in production of rice behind Louisiana and South Carolina.

The Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Hawaiʻi encouraged rice production, primarily in Hanalei.  As a result the acreage planted in rice on the island rose from 759 acres in 1933 to 1,058 in 1934.

For areas like Hanalei Valley, such efforts, coupled with the valley’s general remoteness and absence of competing demands for the land, allowed rice cultivation to continue as a regional activity.

The Hanalei Valley of Kauaʻi led all other single geographic units in the amount of acreage planted in rice. The valley was one of the first areas converted to this use and continued to produce well into the 1960s.

The Commercial Pacific Advertiser noted on October 3, 1861, “Everybody and his wife (including defunct government employees) are into rice – sugar is nowhere and cotton is no longer king. Taro patches are held at fabulous valuations, and among the thoughtful the query is being propounded, where is our taro to come from?”

When the Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaiʻi, their tastes preferred a shorter grain rice than the Chinese long-grain variety. With the decline of the Chinese population and increase in the Japanese population, more of the Japanese rice was being imported from Japan.

As the Japanese left the plantations, they started their own farms and cultivated their own staple rice.

It was at Hanalei where some Chinese built a rice processing facility; it as later purchased by the Haraguchi family in 1924.  At one time, the Haraguchis cultivated about 75-acres in Hanalei Valley.

Fire destroyed the original wooden mill in March of 1930; a new mill consisted of a 3-foot thick concrete foundation with corrugated iron for its roof and siding.  Interior spaces included engine room, milling area, and storage area for both finished and unprocessed rice.

This main engine operated all the mill machinery by turning a main shaft that connected all the other machines by a pulley system.  The rice in a pit would be delivered up by cups on a belt located on a “triple chute” system. One chute served the belts going downward, another chute for the belts returning upwards and a third to suck the dust up which traveled to the blower.

The cups carried the rice over the wall onto another chute and into the strainer. This strainer would shake the rice and separate any rubbish or stones to prevent it from entering the husking machines.  From the strainer, the rice would proceed to the first husker that removed part of the husk.

About 80% of the husks would be removed by this husker. The husks would travel up the air ‘chute to the blower which blew the husks out the back of the mill into a ditch that carried the husks into the river.

The partly husked rice would exit the first husker and was taken up a chute by belted cups and dropped onto another chute into the second husker. The second husker would remove the rest of the husks and the grains would continue up another “triple chute” which would carry it up and over into the polishing machine.

The fine dust from the second husker was collected in a basket under the machine and also taken up the chute into the blower.  Cowhide was used to polish the rice which prevented the grains from cracking which ensured high quality rice.  The rice would exit the polisher and taken up another chute to the grader.

The grading machine constantly shook to move the rice to the three different grades of rice. The whole grain would bypass the grading holes and a trowel was used to push the rice onto a small trough into the rice bag which hung at the end of the funnel.  From there the bags were scaled, sewn by hand and then stacked.

Despite the competition from the California grown rice, the Japanese farmers continued to produce on a smaller scale than the Chinese farmers. By the early 1950s there were about 50 growers cultivating 170 acres of rice on Kauaʻi. Hanalei Valley held 90 acres, 48 acres in Wailua and the rest was split between Hanapepe and Waimea valleys.

In addition to the staple rice, “mochi rice,” used for traditional Japanese cake on New Year’s and other special occasions, was grown.

The mochi rice from Hanalei Valley was noted for its quality throughout the Islands. It was largely a luxury crop and most of it was consumed in the Islands; about 200-bags were shipped to the Mainland.

Some mochi rice was imported from the Mainland but local buyers preferred the local crop since it was said to produce a larger yield of mochi per pound.

In 1959, Hurricane Dot left the mill intact except for an air vent at the roof peak that was torn off and not replaced.  The mill ceased operating in 1960 when Kaua`i’s rice industry collapsed. Hurricane Iwa on November 23, 1982 toppled 85% of the building onto the machinery; then came Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

The Haraguchi Rice Mill was the last mill to operate in Hanalei Valley and the only remaining rice mill in the State of Hawaiʻi.  A nonprofit organization was formed to preserve and interpret the mill; the organization is guided by an unpaid Board of Directors (many of them are members of the Haraguchi family.)  The Haraguchi family now farms taro on the adjacent lands that once supported rice.

Today, the Hoʻopulapula Haraguchi Rice Mill is an agrarian museum located in the taro fields of Hanalei Valley.  The Rice Mill Kiosk is open to the public, Monday through Saturday, 11 am – 3 pm.  No Public access into the farm & Rice Mill unless through guided tours, available Wednesdays at 10 am (reservations are required.)  (Lots of information here from NPS.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: General, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Japanese, Kauai, Rice, Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society, Haraguchi Rice Mill, Chinese, Hanalei

March 11, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kauikeōlani

A person, a place, a hospital … it’s all about a family.

Emma Kauikeōlani Napoleon was the eldest of the fifteen children born to Pamahoa and Temanihi Napoleon; she was of Hawaiian, Corsican and Tahitian descent.

They lived in downtown Honolulu, on Queen Street near Kawaiahaʻo Church; she was a teacher at Kawaiahaʻo Seminary.

Emma lived during the time of transition in Hawaiʻi’s history when the Americanization of Hawaiʻi had replaced the Hawaiʻi of high chiefs.  Growing up during the early part of this period, Emma was one of many exemplary women of her time who strove to bridge the gap between the old and the new.

While protecting her heritage, she followed her convictions to improve the quality of life for all people in Hawaiʻi.  (Notable Women of Hawaii)

On June 2, 1882, Emma married Samuel Mahelona.  Born July 7, 1861, Samuel passed away on May 24, 1892 at age of thirty-one.  As noted in ‘The Friend,’ June, 1892, “The very sudden death of Mr. Samuel Mahelona has removed the head of a beloved Hawaiian household. Mr. M. had for some years been a book-keeper with Allen & Robinson, and was a gentleman of the highest character, and a consistent member, with his wife, of Kawaiahaʻo Church.”

“Mrs. Mahelona, prior to their marriage nine years since, had been greatly valued as an assistant teacher in Kawaiahaʻo Female Seminary, as Miss Emma Napoleon. The example of this refined Christian home of their own people has been one of most important service and encouragement to Hawaiians, and makes the death of this young father a public as well as private loss.”

Their four children were Samuel Hooker Kaleoʻokalani Mahelona (1884 – October 20, 1912;) Ethel Kulamanu Mahelona (February 2, 1887 – September 19, 1954;) Sunbeam Cushman Nehenuiokalani Mahelona (April 14, 1888 – August 16, 1889) and Allen Clesson Kauluheimalama Mahelona (1891 – unknown.)  

On June 7, 1898, Emma married Albert Spencer Wilcox (May 24, 1844-July 7, 1919.) (Albert adopted Emma’s children.)  Albert is the son Abner Wilcox (1808-1869) and Lucy Eliza (Hart) Wilcox (1814-1869;) they were in the eighth company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.)

Albert was born in Hilo on Hawai‘i Island and grew up at Waiʻoli in Hanalei, Kaua‘i.  He worked with his brother George Norton Wilcox (1839-1933) in a sugarcane business in Hanalei, before working as the manager of Hanamāʻulu Plantation; for many years (1877-1898) he managed that section of Līhuʻe plantation.

In 1892, Albert purchased an interest in the Princeville Plantation, and by 1899 had complete ownership; he sold the Princeville lands in June of 1916.

Albert served as president of C Brewer and sat as a director on the boards of Kekaha Sugar Company, Waiʻanae Sugar Company, the Home Insurance Company and the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company. In addition, he served as a member of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi’s House of Representatives for two years (1891-1892.)

In 1899, they built their home on Hanalei Bay.  Albert and Emma named their Hanalei home after Emma’s namesake, Kauikeōlani, which means “place in the skies (of) heaven.”  (The house is also referenced as the Albert Spencer Wilcox Beach House – it’s on the State and National Register of Historic Places.)

It is the earliest known beach house to be constructed on Hanalei Bay.  In the early twentieth century, other substantial beach houses were constructed by Mabel Wilcox, Dr. Harl, the Baldwins, Fayes, Sloggetts and Sanborns.

Kauikeōlani sits on a large landscaped lawn of land on the mauka (mountain) side of Weke Road; it has two inland fish ponds.

The deaths of five of her siblings at early ages greatly influenced Emma’s concern for the welfare of all native Hawaiians.  Albert and Emma Wilcox purchased land and built a hospital in Honolulu; in 1909, the Kauikeōlani Children’s Hospital opened on Kuakini Street and was named in Emma’s honor (one of the few hospitals in the world at that time that was dedicated to treating children.)

“Nearly every child In Kauikeōlani hospital today is a charity ward. It is essentially a charity hospital. No babe in distress is turned from its door. If the parents can afford it, they must pay, but lack of fund keeps no baby away.”

“So good are the environments, the care and the treatment given, that many wealthy parents send their ailing children to private wards in this hospital. … Although all nationalities are welcome at Kauikeōlani … the Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian children predominate.”  (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, May 30, 1916)

In 1978, Kauikeōlani Children’s Hospital merged with Kapiʻolani Hospital and relocated to become Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children.  (Queen Kapiʻolani founded the Kapiʻolani Maternity Home in 1890.)

(The Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific (which first started as a department of the Kauikeolani Children’s Hospital) is now on the grounds of the former Kauikeolani Children’s Hospital.)

Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women & Children is Hawai‘i’s only maternity, newborn and pediatric specialty hospital; it’s in a $30-million fundraising program for its first phase to renovate and expand its facility.

This was not the only medical facility the Wilcox family founded.  Son Samuel Mahelona died of tuberculosis at a young age.  As a memorial to his son, in 1917, Wilcox (with others from the Wilcox family) provided land and funds for the Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital at Kapaʻa, Kauaʻi, for the treatment of tuberculosis (one of the first hospitals on Kauaʻi.)

Over the years, the hospital was enlarged to accommodate increasing numbers of patients and services.  When antibiotics established the cure of tuberculosis, in the early-1950s and 60s, the facility began focusing on long term care needs and began admitting patients with acute mental illness.  It provides 24-hour Emergency Services, Imaging (Digital Xray), Rehabilitation Therapies (Occupational, Physical, Respiratory and Recreational,) Skilled Nursing, Intermediate, Long Term and Acute Care.

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: General, Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Kauai, Hanalei, Emma Kauikeolani Wilcox, Albert Wilcox, Kapiolani Medical Center, Kawaiahao Seminary, Kauikeolani

September 15, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hanalei Bay Pier

Hanalei … Taro … Pier –> you’d expect these are all associated and the reason for the picturesque pier in Hanalei Bay.  … Kinda.

The Hanalei Bay Pier was originally built to serve the region’s thriving rice industry (recall that as taro production declined in the mid- to late-1800s, many of the loʻi were converted to rice cultivation.)

The Chinese were growing rice at Hanalei at least by 1882, and by 1892, Hanalei and Waioli, with 750 acres of land devoted to rice farming, were the largest rice producing areas in Hawaii.

At this time, rice was the number two agricultural product of the Hawaiian kingdom (behind sugar,) having developed as a major crop in the 1860s when numerous Chinese farmers left the sugar cane plantations following the expiration of their five-year contracts.

Occupying taro patches vacated by a declining Hawaiian population, these rice farmers found a ready market for their product in Honolulu and California, as more and more Chinese immigrated to these areas.

At the time of annexation (1898,) Hawaii was third in rice production in the United States, behind Louisiana and South Carolina.

Annexation, with the removal of all tariffs boomed the sugar industry, however spelled the downfall of Hawaiian rice production.  This caused agricultural land costs to rise from $10-20/acre to $30-35/acre, forcing rice land to be converted to cane use.

Annexation also brought with it Chinese exclusion policies which led to a decreased market for rice. In a matter of five years Hawaii’s Chinese population dropped by 6,000, which was a significant factor in the Honolulu market (the Japanese did not purchase the local rice, preferring to use rice imported from their homeland.)

Other difficulties confronting the rice farmer included an increased need to fertilize (the well-used lands began to show signs of exhaustion;) in addition, a labor shortage caused by many Chinese leaving their farms in hopes of earning more elsewhere.

The decline in the Chinese population, the requirements for fertilizer, competition from California rice growers and the introduction of a rice-borer insect all served as contributing factors to the decline of rice farming.

Since the islands of Hawaiʻi are separated from one another and the rest of the world by the Pacific Ocean, ships and boats have been the major means of transporting goods between the islands and frequently to different areas of the same island.

On Kauaʻi, in the early twentieth century, Port Alien was the major port with Nawiliwili and Hanalei serving as local shipping centers.

Large-scale development of Nawiliwili harbor commenced in 1926 and, with its completion in 1930, Nawiliwili became Kauaʻi’s primary harbor.

As a result of its expansion, the tonnage handled by Nawiliwili jumped from 3,766 tons in 1929 to 56,439 tons in 1931. Much of this increased tonnage reflected an improved highway system which led to a decreased use of smaller ports on the island.

As a result of little use, Hanalei pier was abandoned in 1933, marking the end of an era of inter-island transportation.

Originally, a pier there was constructed out of timber, prior to 1882. The pier was reconstructed with reinforced concrete piles and beams and a wooden deck in 1912.

The structure was used seasonally, primarily to transport rice from Hanalei to Honolulu.

The Hanalei River is adjacent to Hanalei Pier, much of the valley’s rice “arrived at the pier area on the black barges of the rice plantations up the river.”  At the foot of Hanalei Pier was a freight storage warehouse connected to the pier by railroad tracks.

From the mauka landing, the rice was shuttled to the end of the pier on a set of iron railroad tracks and then loaded onto boats.  Small whale boats known as “lighters” carried rice to steamers anchored out in Hanalei Bay.

Interisland steamers docked in the deeper waters of Hanalei Bay while cargo was rowed to and from the pier.

Due to the difficulty in maintaining the wooden deck, the Territorial Legislature in 1921 appropriated funds for the construction of a concrete deck. The wooden decking was subsequently replaced with reinforced concrete in 1922.

The Hanalei Pier is a steel reinforced concrete finger pier which extends from the beach out into Hanalei Bay.  It is 340-feet long and has a 32 x 72 terminus with a shed on it.  (The shed at the end of the pier was originally built in 1940.)

From the 1940s until the present, the pier has been primarily a recreational resource for fishing, picnicking, etc. Located adjacent to a beach park, it is a highly scenic attraction to visitor and resident alike.

The pier was featured in the 1957 classic film “South Pacific”.  Kauaʻi may not be in the South Pacific, but the 1958 movie musical “South Pacific” put it on the map as a premiere film location.

On the east side of Hanalei Pier is Black Pot Beach Park, named after a big iron pot that was used to cook fish caught during a hukilau, a traditional fishing practice in which everyone cooperates to spot, net, and gather fish.

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Hanalei-Pier-(NPS)
AERIAL VIEW OF PIER Photographer-unknown. Date-June 20, 1978-(LOC)-058525pv
AERIAL VIEW OF PIER, LOOKING SOUTHWEST Photographer-unknown. Date-unknown-(LOC)-058522pv
DISTANT VIEW OF PIER, LOOKING SOUTHWEST Photographer-Augie Salbosa. Date-February 22, 1991-(LOC)-058526pv
Hanalei_Pier-(NPS)
Hanalei_Pier,_Hanalei_Bay_off_Weke_Road,_Hanalei_(Kauai_County,_Hawaii)-(WC)-1978
Hanalei-Valley-Rice_Fields-1890
VIEW OF PIER, LOOKING NORTHWEST Photographer-Augie Salbosa. Date-February 22, 1991-(LOC)-058528pv
Hanalei_Pier_Kauai-(WC)-2004
Hanalei_Bay_Kauai-(WC)-2004
Black Pot Park-Facilities-map

Filed Under: Place Names, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Kauai, Hanalei, Hanalei Bay Pier

August 24, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waiʻoli Mission District

The first mission station on Kauai was established at Waimea on the more accessible south coast in 1820. In 1834, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sent the Reverend William P. Alexander to investigate the north coast of Kauai for a suitable location for a second station.

He chose the Hanalei area because of its harbor, fertile soil and needs of the people. The actual site was called Waiʻoli, “Singing Waters”.

The Waiʻoli Mission District consists of the main Waiʻoli Mission Residence (1836,) the old Waiʻoli Huiʻia Church (1841,) the new Waiʻoli Huiʻia Church (1912) and related improvements.

Rev. Alexander and his wife and son moved there in 1834 and began work immediately, preaching to hundreds of islanders in a huge thatched meeting house, while living in a small grass hut.

The Alexanders carried on alone with their work until 1837 when the Board of Commissioners sent a teaching couple, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Johnson, to the mission. In the meantime, the Alexanders built a frame house for their growing family.

To help make ends meet, the mission planted crops in land donated by the Governor of Kauaʻi. The students helped cultivate the crops, and in so doing, learned agricultural techniques. Cotton was tried without much success. Sugar cane proved much more suitable.

As the center of mission activities on the Hanalei side of Kauai, Waiʻoli Church and Mission House played an important role in the history of that part of the island.

Deborah Kapule, the dowager Queen of Kauai and an earnest convert, assisted in establishing the Mission. Governor Kaikioewa of Kauai provided the land and encouraged the Mission in many ways.

The Old Waiʻoli Huiʻia Church is actually the third church built on its site. The first was a huge thatch structure built by the local populace when they heard that a permanent missionary was to be sent to them.

It was constructed in 1832, but destroyed by fire in 1834, just prior to the arrival of the Rev. William Alexander. He immediately built another similar structure, but it was destroyed by a storm in 1837.

In 1841, Rev. Alexander dedicated the present Old Waiʻoli Huiʻia Church; it is the oldest church on the Island of Kauai.

In 1843, the Alexanders were transferred to the Lāhainā station due to illness and the Rev. and Mrs. George Rowell took their place.

In 1846, Rev. Rowell and his wife were transferred to Waimea. Mr. and Mrs. Abner Wilcox and their four boys were sent from Oʻahu to take over the teaching duties. Mr. Wilcox was to “raise up teachers for the common schools of the island and to prepare those who may go from our Island to the High School”.

In 1853, the American Board finally transferred the Sandwich Islands Mission to the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, which had the status of a “home mission”. To round out the missionaries’ pensions, the American Board divided mission lands among them.

In this manner, the Waiʻoli home was deeded to the Wilcox family. They had decided to make their home in Hawaiʻi rather than return to the mainland. However, in 1869, while on a visit to relatives in New England, Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox suddenly fell ill and died.

The sons took over the Waiʻoli property, managing the farm operation and keeping the buildings in good repair. Albert Wilcox was the last to live in the frame house, moving out in 1877.

The sons went on to become some of the most prominent figures in Hawaii. George N. Wilcox became a highly successful sugar planter on Kauai and entered politics.

He was elected to the legislature. In 1887, he was elected to the House of Nobles, and after Kalākaua’s death, was appointed Minister of the Interior by Queen Liliuokalani.

After the fall of the monarchy, he served the Republic of Hawaiʻi in the constitutional convention, and later, in the Senate. All the while, he continued his sugar operations at the Grove Farm Plantation on Kauai, as well as participating in various other enterprises. The other Wilcox boys also played important parts in monarchy, Republic and Territorial commerce and politics.

In 1912, the current church building was built with donations from Sam, George and Albert Wilcox (sons of the missionary couple who were born at the station). The old 1841 church was used as the Mission Hall. The old mission bell was used in the belfry.

In 1921, Wilcox descendants funded architect Hart Wood to restore the Mission House and the Mission Hall. By 1945, it merged with the Anini Church and the Haʻena Church to become the Huiʻia Church.

Having survived two previous hurricanes, Hurricane Dot and Hurricane Iwa, both the Waiʻoli Huiʻia Church Sanctuary and the Waiʻoli Mission Hall were restored after sustaining significant damage from Hurricane Iniki in 1992. Both buildings are listed on the state and national registers of historic places.

The Waiʻoli Huiʻia Church has had a continuous record of service since 1834, first as a Congregational Church and since 1957 as a United Church of Christ.

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  • Old Waioli Church
  • Old Waioli Church
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Filed Under: Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Place Names Tagged With: Waioli, Huiia Church, Waioli Mission, Hawaii, Hanalei, Wilcox

July 19, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Rice

Rice production was not a major contributor to Hawaiʻi’s economy until the latter half of the nineteenth century. As whaling declined in importance, greater emphasis was placed on agricultural production, primarily sugar and rice.

It was in 1850 when the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society was formed to develop Hawaiʻi’s agricultural resources that rice made its mark in the Hawaiʻi economy. The group purchased land in the Nuʻuanu Valley and rice seed from China and planted in a former taro patch.

At first the Society offered the rice seed to anyone in Hawaiʻi who wanted to plant it. King Kamehameha IV also offered land grants for cultivation of rice. Because there were no proper milling facilities in Hawaiʻi, it didn’t take off as a viable crop right away.

Then, in 1860, imported rice seed from South Carolina proved very successful and yielded a fair amount of crop. This, combined with the collapse of the taro industry in 1861-1862 (as the Hawaiian population declined, the demand for taro also declined,) added value to the numerous vacant taro patches and a boom in the rice industry.

From 1860 to the 1920s, Rice was raised in the islands of Hawaiʻi, particularly in Kauai and Oʻahu, because of their abundance of rain.

The Hanalei Valley of Kauai led all other single geographic units in the amount of acreage planted in rice. The valley was one of the first areas converted to this use and continued to produce well into the 1960s.

The Commercial Pacific Advertiser noted on October 3, 1861, “Everybody and his wife (including defunct government employees) are into rice – sugar is nowhere and cotton is no longer king. Taro patches are held at fabulous valuations, and among the thoughtful the query is being propounded, where is our taro to come from?”

During the 1860s and 1870s, the production of rice increased substantially. It was consumed domestically by the burgeoning numbers of Chinese brought to the Islands as agricultural laborers.

In 1862, the first rice mill in the Hawaiian Islands was constructed in Honolulu (prior to that it was sent unhulled and uncleaned to be milled in San Francisco.) By 1887 over 13 million pounds of rice were exported.

A particularly important stimulus for the increased demand for rice was the Reciprocity Treaty of 1876. This treaty between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi granted duty-free status to certain items of trade between the two countries, including rice.

Thomas Thrum wrote in 1877 that Kamehameha V and other landowners had “planted a large tract of land in rice (in Moanalua,) and even went so far as to pull up and destroy large patches of growing taro to plant rice.”

In 1899, Hawaiʻi’s rice production had expanded so that it placed third in production of rice behind Louisiana and South Carolina.

Much of this rice acreage was worked initially by Chinese immigrants, who first arrived as contract laborers in 1852. By 1860 this immigrant population totaled 1,200. Chinese immigration continued at a rapid pace until 1884, when the official census estimated the number of Chinese at 18,254.

In 1882 the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act; then, Japanese workers were brought in to take their place. Within only five years the Japanese constituted more than forty-two percent of the plantation work force and one-seventh of the total population.

Ironically, this influx of Japanese immigrants accelerated Hawaiʻi’s decline in rice production. Japanese preferred short grain rice rather than the long grain rice the Chinese were used to eating. So rice began to be imported from California for the Japanese.

California’s success would ultimately mean the end of the rice industry in Hawaiʻi. Furthermore, the hand labor techniques of Hawaiʻi’s Chinese and Japanese rice farmers could not compete with California’s mechanized production technology.

Additional problems with the rice bird and rice borer, as well as the lack of interest on the part of the younger generation to continue rice farming, eventually meant the end of a once prosperous industry.

Attempts to revive rice production by the Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Hawaiʻi were made in 1906 and 1933, primarily in Hanalei.

As a result the acreage planted in rice on the island rose from 759 acres in 1933 to 1,058 in 1934. For areas like Hanalei Valley, such efforts, coupled with the valley’s general remoteness and absence of competing demands for the land, allowed rice cultivation to continue as a regional activity long after it had been abandoned throughout the rest of Hawaiʻi.

Today, there is no trace of the rice fields in Hawaiʻi. However, Hoʻopulapula Haraguchi Rice Mill museum in Hanalei Valley provides a remnant look at the once prospering agricultural venture.

It was built by the Chinese and purchased by the Haraguchi family in 1924. The Haraguchi family has restored the mill three times; after a fire in 1930, then again after Hurricane Iwa in 1982 and Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

The mill ceased operating in 1960 when Kauai’s rice industry collapsed. A nonprofit organization was formed to preserve and interpret the mill, which has been visited by thousands of school children and adults in the past 29 years.

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Rice
Rice
Rice
Rice
View of rice fields towards Pālolo Valley from the back of Waikīkī, Hawai`i, ca. 1910
View of rice fields towards Pālolo Valley from the back of Waikīkī, Hawai`i, ca. 1910
Rice
Rice
Windward_Rice_Planting
Windward_Rice_Planting
Rice_fields_workers_beneath_Punchbowl_Crater,_Honolulu,_in_1900
Rice_fields_workers_beneath_Punchbowl_Crater,_Honolulu,_in_1900
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Rice-aep-his290
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Rice-aep-his291
The Iron Horse Comes to Hawaii-Peter Hurd-1889
The Iron Horse Comes to Hawaii-Peter Hurd-1889
Chinese water buffalo plowing rice field Hawaii Tai Sing Loo-(KSBE)=
Chinese water buffalo plowing rice field Hawaii Tai Sing Loo-(KSBE)=
Chinese-Waterbuffalo-Rice
Chinese-Waterbuffalo-Rice
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Rice
Windward_Rice_Farmers
Windward_Rice_Farmers

Filed Under: Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Waikiki, Kaneohe, Rice, Hanalei

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Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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Hoʻokuleana LLC

Hoʻokuleana LLC is a Planning and Consulting firm assisting property owners with Land Use Planning efforts, including Environmental Review, Entitlement Process, Permitting, Community Outreach, etc. We are uniquely positioned to assist you in a variety of needs.

Info@Hookuleana.com

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