Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kapaʻakea Spring

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2023 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“The sound of the waves on the beach at Waikiki”

Webley Edwards was born November 11, 1902 in Corvallis, Oregon.  He attended Oregon Agricultural College (OAC – it was later named Oregon State University) where he became the first student manager of campus radio, KOAC.

As an OAC student, Webley “made good grades, was a popular athlete, and became the best ukulele player on campus, in an era when skill with the instrument was considered a sure way to a woman’s heart.”  (Corvallis Gazette-Times)

After graduating from OAC in 1927, Webley moved to Hawaiʻi in 1928 to work as a car salesman and play semi-pro football. Fascinated with the local music, in 1935, he arranged for a two-week trial run for a radio show of “authentic” Hawaiian music.

On July 3, 1935, Edwards created and first aired a radio program called “Hawaiʻi Calls” featuring Hawaiian music and entertainment.

The first show reached the West Coast of the continental US through shortwave radio.  Although the program enjoyed a growing popularity on the mainland, Edwards initially had a hard time making ends meet and solicited support from the Hawaiʻi Tourist Bureau.

Hawaiʻi was calling, he seemed to suggest, and to the home-bound listener freezing through an Iowa or Montana winter, making a vow to one day visit the Islands became irresistible.

From about 40,000 visitors annually in the 1930s, the number had grown to 500,000 by the time the show ended its run more than 35 years later.  (Corvallis Gazette-Times)

Except for an apparent break during World War II, the radio program aired continuously since its inception.

Edwards was the first to broadcast news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  In his own words, “the real McCoy. All army, navy and marine personnel report to duty.”  (Corvallis Gazette-Times)

During the war, Edwards worked as a reporter for CBS Radio and landed exclusives including an interview with Colonel Paul W Tibbetts (the pilot of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, who dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima.)

He had been chosen by lottery to be the chief announcer for the shipboard ceremony that ended hostilities between the United States and Japan and aboard the USS Missouri reported on the surrender ceremony that brought the conflict to its close.  (Ankeny)

“Attention, peoples of the world! World War II is about to come to its official closing, three years, eight months and 25 days since the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese delegation has just arrived.”

“Lined up before us are officers and men with high-ranking stars and gold braid. The deck of the Missouri stretches out before us … its great guns pointed skyward to allow for more room …”   (Corvallis Gazette-Times)

From the time of inception until January of 1972, Webley Edwards was Hawaiʻi Calls’ announcer and leading personality.

Each show opened with the sounds of the pounding surf and the enthusiastic bounding voice of Webley Edwards proclaiming “The sound of the waves on the beach at Waikiki.”

Usually that radio program was broadcast to the Mainland at about sundown. The announcer always described the beautiful sunset including the words, “and now the beautiful sun is a ball of fire, sinking, sinking, ever so slowly over the edge of the ocean–there it goes.”    (Green)

The weekly program was typically taped before a live audience at the Moana Hotel in Waikiki.  Periodically, they took the show on the road and broadcast from a neighbor island.

In its heyday, the show was heard on over 600 radio stations in North America and scores of others in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, South America, Africa and the Far East.  It was also heard on the Voice of Freedom (the predecessor to the Voice of America) and on Armed Forces Radio throughout the world.    (Hula Records)

Throughout the 1950s, Edwards compiled and produced a series of Hawaiian music collections for Capitol Records.  He even wrote songs under a pseudonym, John Kalapana.

In all, Hawaiʻi Calls spanned 40-years, along the way popularizing tunes including “Lovely Hula Hands,” “Beyond the Reef,” “Little Brown Gal” and “The Hawaiian Wedding Song.”

“Sweet Leilani,” which Edwards debuted in 1936, won an Academy Award after Bing Crosby’s powerful, yet gentle, rendition from the movie ‘Waikiki Wedding’ thrilled people throughout the world.  (Hula Records)

In addition, he helped promote local performers, including Alfred Apaka, George Kainapau, Haleloke, and Simeon and Andy Bright.  (Ankeny)  In addition, Al Jolson and Arthur Godfrey were among the many guests featured on the program.

After Edwards left the program, Danny Kaleikini, a well-known Hawaiʻi entertainer and singer, was the announcer and a performer for the program.  (US District Court Records)  The program ended August 16, 1975.

Late in his career, Edwards made a successful run at politics, serving for more than 14-years in Hawaiʻi’s territorial legislature and then the state legislature.

Spending his last few months in a Honolulu assisted-living facility, he died October 5, 1977, after suffering a heart attack.

On October 3, 1992 there was a temporary return of Hawaiʻi Calls, taped at the Hilton Hawaiian Village’s beachside Tropics Showroom, then transmitted via satellite to affiliates.  It ran for about a year, but it failed to attract enough financial support to continue.

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC12

by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Moana Hotel

Waikīkī was once a vast marshland whose boundaries encompassed more than 2,000-acres (as compared to its present 500-acres we call Waikīkī, today).

In the late-1890s, with additional steamship lines to Honolulu, the visitor arrivals to Oʻahu were increasing.  In 1896, Walter Chamberlain Peacock, a wealthy Waikīkī homeowner at the time, proposed to build Waikīkī’s first major resort to provide a solution to the area’s main drawback – the lack of suitable accommodations on the beach.

Often called the “First Lady of Waikīkī,” the Moana Hotel has been a Hawaiʻi icon since its opening opened on March 11, 1901.

The original wooden center structure of the Moana Hotel is the oldest existing hotel in Waikīkī. As such, it deserves recognition as a landmark in Hawaii’s tourist industry.

Designed in the old colonial style architecture of the period, it boasted 75 rooms and was the costliest, most elaborate and modern hotel building in the Hawaiian Islands at the time.

Each room on the three upper floors had a bathroom and a telephone – innovations for any hotel of the times.  The hotel also had its own ice plant and electric generators.  The first floor had a billiard parlor, saloon, main parlor, library, office, and reception area.

The Moana was one of the earliest “high-rise” buildings in Hawaii and was the costliest hotel in the islands. In spite of numerous renovations and changes, it has retained its tropical openness and is a welcome change from the more modern high-rises that surround it.

The original four story wood structure, designed by OG Traphagen, a well known Honolulu architect, features an elaborately designed lobby which extends to open lanais and is open to the Banyan Court and the sea.

By 1918, Hawaii had 8,000 visitors annually and by the 1920s Matson Navigation Company ships were bringing an increasing number of wealthy visitors.

This prompted a massive addition to the hotel.  In 1918, two floors were added along with concrete wings on each side, doubling the size of the hotel.

In the 1920s, the Waikīkī landscape underwent a dramatic re-development when the wetlands were drained with the construction of the Ala Wai Canal.  The reclaimed lands were subdivided into 5,000-square foot lots.

Matson Navigation Company bought the Moana in 1932; it paired with Matson’s other Waikīkī property, the Royal Hawaiian.

From 1935 until 1975, the Moana Hotel courtyard was home to the “Hawaii Calls” worldwide radio show, with its trademark sound of waves breaking in the distance.

The 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor and Second World War interrupted the flow of visitors to Waikīkī and the region becomes a rest and recreation area for soldiers and sailors coming and going to the war in the Pacific.

After the war, tourism thrived in the late-1940s and 50s, with the introduction of regularly scheduled airline service from the West Coast.

1959 brought two significant actions that shaped the present day make-up of Hawai‘i, (1) Statehood and (2) jet-liner service between the mainland US and Honolulu (Pan American Airways Boeing 707.)  (That year, the Moana was sold to the Sheraton hotel chain.)

These two events helped guide and expand the fledgling visitor industry in the state into the number one industry that it is today.  Tourism exploded.  Steadily during the 1960s, 70s and 80s the millions of tourists added up, as did the new visitor accommodations in Waikīkī.

The Moana remains a constant reminder of the old Waikīkī.

In the center of the Moana’s courtyard stands a large Banyan tree. The Indian Banyan tree was planted in 1904 by Jared Smith, Director of the Department of Agriculture Experiment Station (about 7-feet at planting, it is now over 75-feet in height.)

In 1979 the historic tree was one of the first to be listed on Hawaii’s Rare and Exceptional Tree List. It has also been selected by the Board of Trustees of America the Beautiful Fund as the site for a Hawaii Millennium Landmark Tree designation, which selects one historic tree in each state for protection in the new millennium.

In 1905, the Moana Hotel was at the center of one of America’s legendary mysteries. Jane Stanford, co-founder of Stanford University and former wife of California Governor Leland Stanford, died in a Moana Hotel room of poisoning.

After several renovations and additions, the hotel now accommodates 794 guest rooms, two restaurants, spa and a bunch of other hotel amenities.