Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hilo High School

“The American Public School system comprises in most of the states twelve grades, occupying the children between the ages of 6 and 12. These grades are thus denominated: First to Fourth Primary, Fifth to Eighth Grammar, Ninth to Twelfth High.”

“A slight departure from this scheme of classification is made in the Territory.  Here, though maintaining the same twelve grades, as in the states, they are divided in six grades in the Primary School, and six grades in the High School.”

“The curriculum of the grades nine to twelve inclusive corresponds to that of the same grades in the schools on the mainland.”  (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

Without a high school on the Island of Hawai‘i, “It has been the habit of solicitous parents of this island during the past century to send their children to the schools of Honolulu, for whatever education they received beyond the grammar grades. It is needless to say that this necessity has entailed both anxiety and expense.”

“Thus it became an object with the teachers and parents of Hilo to secure in their midst sufficient advantages to return their children at home.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

A High School in Hilo had a shaky start.  After passage in 1903, but failing to receive the Governor’s signature, in a February, 1905 session of the legislature, “Under suspension of the rules, Senator [John T] Brown introduced a bill (S. B. No. 23) entitled ‘An Act to Provide for a High School in Hilo, Island and Territory of Hawaii, under the Department of Public Instruction of the Territory.’”

The proposed legislation, again, passed through the legislature.  When presented to Governor Carter and Carter stated, “I am unable to approve”, citing that “This bill falls within that class of absolutely unnecessary legislation.”  On April 18, 1905, the legislature overrode the Governor’s veto.

“A special committee of the Board of Education … held a conference with Superintendent Davis and Normal Inspector King when the plans for putting the high school in operation were discussed.”

“The problem before the Commissioners was whether they should start the High School work of Hilo at the beginning of the next school year as a separate organization or wait until the new High School building was erected and then begin the independent organization.”  (Hilo Tribune, July 18, 1905) It was decided to start sooner than later.

“In Sept. 1905 a class of twenty pupils was excellently fitted to begin their secondary studies.  … Room for its reception was made in the Union School, where, despite much painful crowding, very efficient work was accomplished.”  (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

“The Hilo High School began its career under that apellation on Sept. 6, 1905, under the direction of Mr. FA Richmond (‘a Stanford graduate and has been vice principal of the Honolulu High School’), CO Smith and Miss MP Potter.”

A site was needed.  “At a meeting of the Board of Trade … it was decided to recommend the Riverside school site for the new Hilo High School, and to remove the present Riverside school to the Masonic Hall lot opposite”. (Hilo Tribune, July 18, 1905)

“There were in the schools of Hilo nine grades – the beginning with Ninth being the only grade entitled by usage in the States to be called High School. However, grades Seven, Eight and Nine were assembled under the High School teachers, and proceeded to work in two of the upstairs rooms of the Hilo Union School.”

“Since that time two new grades have entered the High School, and the original students no constitute grades Nine, Ten and Eleven. One year from now the present eleventh grade will graduate as the 1908 Twelfth Grade. And the curriculum of the school will be completely taught.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

“The first class will be given (1) what is known as ‘first year Latin,’ to prepare the students to read Caesar; (2) English, comprehending correct composition, rather than criticism; (3) History-Ancient Greek and Roman; (4) Physical Geography; (5) Algebra, through quadratics, and (6), the study of some language, either French or German.” (Hilo Tribune, Aug 29, 1905)

“The work of the High School has been shaped to fit carefully local needs. Such students as feel the need of immediately getting into business will be given a Commercial Course in book keeping, typewriting, shorthand, commercial arithmetic, court reporting, etc.”

“Such students as have expectations of colleges will be given careful preparation for entrance to the best American colleges and Universities.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

The new school building opened September 9, 1907.  “The Hilo high school has four good, well-lighted and ventilated rooms downstairs, capable of accommodating 160 pupils.  There are six rooms upstairs there 100 additional pupils can receive instruction … The room for the commercial class is well equipped.”  (Advertiser, September 7, 1907)

Hilo High’s first graduating class consisted of seven students in 1909: Richard Kekoa, Amy Williams, Eliza Desha, Frank Arakawa, John Kennedy, Annie Napier and Herbert Westerbelt. (Mangiboyat)

Hilo High Auditorium was built in 1928. It was donated to the school by the Alumni Association. It was designed by a former student (and part of the first graduates) of Hilo High School, Frank Arakawa.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Judd Trail

Road making as practiced in Hawaiʻi in the middle of the 19th-century was a very superficial operation, in most places consisting of little more than clearing a right of way, doing a little rough grading and supplying bridges of a sort where they could not be dispensed with.    (Kuykendall)

The absence of roads in some places and the bad condition of those that did exist were common causes of complaints which found expression in the newspapers. But in spite of the complaints, it is clear that in the 1860s the kingdom had more roads and on the whole better ones than it had twenty or even ten years earlier.  (Kuykendall)

At its May 23, 1849 meeting, the Privy Council of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi (a private committee of the King’s closest advisors to give confidential advice on affairs of state) sought to “facilitate communication between Kailua, the seat of the local government, and Hilo, the principal port.”

They resolved “that GP Judd and Kinimaka proceed to Kailua, Hawaiʻi, to explore a route from that place to Hilo direct, and make a road, if practicable, by employing the prisoners on that island and if necessary taking the prisoners from this island (Oʻahu) to assist; the government to bear all expenses”. (Privy Council Minutes, Punawaiola)

(In 1828, Dr Gerrit Parmele Judd came with the Third Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi.  A medical missionary, Judd had originally come to the islands to serve as the missionary physician; by 1842, he left the mission and served in the Hawaiian government.)

(He first served as “translator and recorder,” then member of the “treasury board,” then secretary of state for foreign affairs, minister of the interior and minister of finance (the latter he held until 1853, when by resignation, he terminated his service with the government.))

In planning the road, the words of the Privy Council’s resolution were taken literally, and the route selected ran to the high saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on a practically straight line between the terminal points.

What became known as the “Judd Road” (or “Judd Trail”) was constructed between 1849 and 1859; construction began at the government road in Kailua (what is now known as Aliʻi Drive) and traversed through a general corridor between Hualālai and Mauna Loa.  (Remnants of perimeter walls can still be seen at Aliʻi Drive.)

“This was the road that Dr. Judd … would have built from Kona in a straight line across the island of Hawaii. It was meant, of course, as a road for horsemen and pack animals. In the generation of Dr. Judd it was a great work, and the manner of its building showed that he meant it to be a monument to him for all time.”  (Ford, Mid-Pacific, 1912)

When the road had been built about 12-miles from Kailua into the saddle between Hualālai and Mauna Loa, the project was abandoned – a pāhoehoe lava flow from the 11,000 foot-level of Mauna Loa crossed its path.

Though incomplete (it never reached its final destination in Hilo,) people did use the Judd Road to get into Kona’s mauka countryside.

“Up the long slope of Hualālai we ascended to Kaʻalapuali, following the old Judd trail through fields of green cane, through grass lands, through primeval forests, over fallen monarchs, finally out on that semi-arid upland which lies between Hualālai and Mauna Loa.  Here we turned up the slope of Hualālai, climbing through a forest cover of ʻōhiʻa lehua and sandalwood carpeted with golden-eyed daisies – another picture of Hawaii, never to be forgotten.”

“And then the summit with its eight or more great craters and that strange, so-called bottomless pit, Hualālai, after which the mountain is named, and the battle of the Kona and trade wind clouds over the labyrinthean volcanic pits, gray-white spectres of vapor—all these linger in retrospection as we cast our mind’s eye back to that experience of one year ago.”

“Here on this weird summit, where the sun played hide and seek with the tumultuous clouds, the ʻiʻiwi, ʻelepaio, and ʻamakihi birds flitted and twittered from puʻu kiawe to mamani. Down the long southeast slope, beneath the white vapors, beautifully symmetrical cones arose from slopes, tree-clad and mottled by shifting clouds and sun.”

“Farther up the Judd trail, we came to that unique “Plain of Numbering”, where King ʻUmi built his heiau over four centuries ago and called his people together from all the Island of Hawaii. There is a romantic glamor hanging around those heaps of rocks which numbered the people who gathered at Ahua ʻUmi that will remain as a fond memory throughout eternity.”  (Thrum, 1924)

(ʻUmi took a census at about 1500; for this census, each inhabitant of the Island of Hawaiʻi was instructed to come to a place called the “Plain of Numbering” to put a rock on the pile representing his own district. The result, still visible today, was a three-dimensional graphic portrayal of population size and distribution.   (Schmitt))

“It is a wonderful setting up there on that arid plateau with Hualālai to the left and Mauna Loa rising majestically and deceptively to the right, with lofty Mauna Kea, snow-patched and beckoning from the distance before us. There is something sublimely massive, rugged, uplifting about that arid, wild region of the “plain of numbering-‘ hidden away from the ordinary walks of men, off to the right and near the end of the old Judd trail.”  (Thrum, 1924)

This road was not the only attempt of linking East and West Hawaiʻi.  About 100-years after the Privy Council’s resolution to connect East with West, the US military completed the link by building a vehicular access route to its Pōhakuloa Training Area during World War II.

Like earlier roads in Hawaiʻi it was not originally designed to State highway standards.  Surfacing and nominal repairs over the subsequent decades left a roadway that island rental car companies banned its customers from use.

Today, route 200, known locally as Saddle Road, traverses the width of the Island of Hawaiʻi, from downtown Hilo to its junction with Hawaii Route 190 near Waimea.  It “represent(s) both literally and symbolically … the physical bridging together of East and West Hawaii and the bridging of the bonds between people.”  (SCR 43, 2013)

Saddle Road is the shortest and most direct route across the island of Hawai‘i, linking the historical main population centers of the island in East Hawai‘i with the growing West side, where the economy is anchored by tourism.

With realignment of portions and reconstruction starting in 2004, in 2013, the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation (DOT) opened the last improved segment and renamed the 41-mile upgraded length of Hawaiʻi Saddle Road the Daniel K Inouye Highway (the renaming occurred on Inouye’s birthday, September 7 (Inouye died December 17, 2012.))

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

John Harvey Coney

John Harvey Coney was born in June 1820 in Litchfield, NY.  He came to Hawaiʻi after participating in the 1848 Mexican-American War.  He married Laura Amoy Kekuakapuokalani Ena (she was 17) on November 27, 1860.

John, supposedly through his wife’s family’s connections with King Kamehameha IV, was soon appointed Sheriff of Hilo, where Laura’s ancestral lands were located.  (Williams)

“I stopped 3 days with Hon. Mr. (Coney), Deputy Marshal of the Kingdom, at Hilo, Hawaii, last week, & by a funny circumstance, he knew everybody that ever I knew in Hannibal & Palmyra. We used to sit up all night talking, & then sleep all day. He lives like a Prince.”  (Twain)

The Coneys lived in a long grass thatched house on the mauka (toward the mountain) side of the courthouse lot, and later built a pretentious residence which is now (1922) the County Building….”  (Williams)

Coney was “a tall handsome man, who carried himself like a soldier,” he was “titular executive head of government next to the Governess of Hawaiʻi and Lieut. Governor”.  (Sanderson)

Besides being Sheriff (and later postmaster,) Coney got into a variety of business interests.  An April 22, 1868 Hawaiian Gazette notes, “Wharf at Hilo. The landing of passengers and goods at the Harbor of Hilo has been facilitated by the building of a short wharf from the rocky point at the west end of the beach. It has been made by the enterprise of Mr Coney and Mr  Hitchcock”.

“The wharf just built is well timbered and fastened, and carries six feet of water. Its strength was tested by the great, earthquake wave of Thursday, and by a loaded scow washing upon it, and it proved equal to the strain. Wharfage, hereafter, will be one of the charges on schooners running to Hilo.”  (Hawaiian Gazette, April 22, 1868)

Wife Laura was of royal descent.  She was the daughter of Chinese merchant John Lawai Ena and Hawaiian chiefess Kaikilanialiiwahineopuna (a descendent of the Kamehameha line and the last high chiefess of the Puna district of the island of Hawaiʻi.)  She was described as “an exceptionally fine woman of high character, gracious manner, generous instincts and kind disposition….” (Williams)

The Coneys had six children:  Clarissa (Clara) Piilani Amoy Coney (lady-in-waiting to the household of Queen Kapiʻolani;) Mary Ululani Monroe Coney; John Harvey Haalalea Coney (High Sheriff on Kauaʻi, later Territorial Representative and Senator;) Elizabeth (Lizzy) Likelike Kekaekapuokulani Coney (lady in waiting to Princess Miriam Likelike Cleghorn at Coronation of Kalākaua;) Eleanor (Kaikilani) Coney (travelling companion to Queen Liliʻuokalani across US) and William Hawks Hulilaukea Coney (co-Founder with Wallace Rider Farrington of Evening Bulletin, predecessor of the Honolulu Star Bulletin.)

Laura taught her children not to speak of their aliʻi blood, to forget about high chiefs and chiefesses, and to make their own way in the world because the days of chiefs and chiefesses were gone.

A daughter-in-law once noted, “I remember a time when the king (Kalākaua) was calling on Mother Coney. He was busy at the time collecting the genealogies of the nobility and the mele (songs, chants) of the Hawaiians.”

“He said to Mother Coney, ‘Tell me, Mrs. Coney, who were your ancestors, I know that you belong to the Kamehameha line.’ ‘Adam and Eve were my ancestors,’ she replied.”  (Williams)

After about 18-years in Hilo, the Coneys moved to Honolulu; their home (which they called ‘ Halelelea,’ that they translated to ‘Pleasant House’) was just mauka of ʻIolani Palace (on the mauka-Diamond Head corner of Richards and Hotel Streets.)  It was often the setting for many of the city’s “brilliant entertainments” during the Kalākaua monarchy.  (Williams)

In the Māhele of 1848, the property had been grant to High Chiefess Miriam Ke‘ahikuni Kekauōnohi, a granddaughter of Kamehameha I and a wife of Kamehameha II. Upon her death on June 2, 1851, all her property was passed on to her second husband, High Chief Levi Haʻalelea.

Levi Haʻalelea’s second wife was Amoe Ululani Ena Haʻalelea, sister of Laura Ena Coney.  When Levi Haʻalelea died in 1864, his second wife transferred ownership of the land to her sister’s husband John Coney.

In 1889, the Coney’s home, Halelelea, played a minor role during the Wilcox rebellion to restore the rights of the monarchy, two years after the Bayonet Constitution of 1887 left King Kalākaua a mere figurehead.

The insurgents were hunkered down in a bungalow across a narrow lane from the Coney House.  The plan was to throw dynamite at the bungalow.

“No attack was expected from that quarter, and there was nothing to disturb the bomb thrower. (Hay Wodehouse) stood for a moment with a bomb in his hand as though he were in the box waiting for a batsman. He had to throw over a house to reach the bungalow, which he could not see.”

“The first bomb went sailing over the wall, made a down curve and struck the side of the bungalow about a foot from the roof … The bomb had reached them and hurt a number of the insurgents. “

Wodehouse “coolly picked out another bomb. Then he took a step back, made a half turn and sent it whizzing.  It landed on the roof … He threw one more bomb and Wilcox came out and surrendered.”    (The Sporting Life, October 16, 1889)

Another property that had been granted to Kekauōnohi and subsequently conveyed to Coney at the same time as their home was approximately 41,000-acres of land at Honouliuli.  In 1877, Coney sold that land to James Campbell, who soon started Honouliuli Ranch.  After drilling Hawaiʻi’s first artesian well (1879,) by 1890 the Ewa Plantation Company was established.

John Harvey Coney died in Honolulu on October 9, 1880, at the age of 60.  Laura Ena Coney died in Honolulu on February 24, 1929, at the age of 85.

In a funeral recitation for Laura given by the Reverend Akaiko Akana, pastor of Kawaiahaʻo Church, on February 24, 1929, Laura was referred to as “one of the old and prominent kamaʻāinas who has helped to build Hawaii, not only by her personal effort, but through her influence on her husband, children and influencial associates and acquaintances throughout these islands.”  (Williams)

There are two marble plaques in Kawaiahaʻo Church commemorating members of the Coney family, both above the mauka royal pew. Donated by her daughters Kaikilani and Elizabeth, one reads: In Memory of Laura Kekuakapuokalani Coney 1844—1929 Always a devoted member of Kawaiahaʻo Church, she often said, “Ka wahi e nele ai, e haʻawi” Where need is, there give.

The other plaque reads: “In Memory of Levi Haʻalelea 1828-1864 His wife Ululani A. A. Haʻalelea 1824-1904 and Richard Haʻalilio 1808—1844.”  (I have been told this plaque is incorrect – Levi Haʻalelea was born in 1822; the last name listed should be Timothy Haʻalilio.)

The image shows John Harvey Coney.  In addition, I have added other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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‘Bloody Monday’

In 1935, as part of the New Deal initiatives, Congress passed the Wagner Act legalizing workers’ rights to join and be represented by labor unions.

In Hawaiʻi, business was dominated by the Big Five: Alexander & Baldwin, C. Brewer, Castle & Cooke, AmFac and Theo. Davies.  Nearly everything of significance, from banks to shipping lines and sugar plantations to newspapers, was tightly controlled by the Big Five.

One third of the population of the islands was living on the plantations, with seventy percent of the people directly dependent on plantation economy.

The Hilo Longshoremen’s Association was formed on November 22, 1935, when about 30 young longshoremen of almost every ethnic and racial origin common to the territory agreed to join forces and organize all the waterfront workers regardless of race or national origin.

By the summer of 1937, with the help of the longshoremen, Hilo had the following unions: Hilo Laundry Workers’ Association, Hilo Longshoremen’s Association, Hilo Canec Association, Hilo Clerks’ Association, Hilo Railroad Association and the Honuʻapo Longshoremen’s Association.

By 1938, during the height of the Great Depression, labor discontent escalated over low pay and poor working conditions.  Negotiations were underway between the unions and employers on two major issues: 1) parity or equity of wages and conditions with the West Coast workers; and 2) the closed or union shop or some kind preferential hiring arrangement.

But Hawai’i employers were committed to fight the issue of wage parity or mainland wage standards in every industry as a matter of principle.

The Hilo Longshoremen’s Association struck against the Inter-Island Steamship Navigation Co.

The Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. had been controlled since 1925 by Matson Navigation and Castle & Cooke, the days before commercial airline transport between the islands.  Its ships carried virtually all passenger and light freight traffic.

After three weeks of striking, the unions had decided to fall back somewhat and draw their line at the return of the two larger ships, the SS Waiʻaleʻale and the SS Hualalai.

Inter-Island scheduled another return of the Waiʻaleʻale to Hilo Harbor.  Expecting confrontation, the night before the scheduled arrival, nearly 70-Police officers and special volunteer deputies began to assemble at the wharf to be sure that the union men would not get there before they did.

They had a small arsenal of 52-riot guns with bayonets, 4-Thompson sub-machine guns, tear gas grenades and an adequate supply of ammunition including both buckshot and birdshot cartridges for the riot guns.

In addition, the Hilo Fire Department was assigned to dispatch a pumping truck and enough firemen as might be needed to repulse the marchers with water hoses.

In addition to the official police force that was assembling, the Inter-Island Navigation Company had also prepared a squad of its own ‘specials.’

The Waiʻaleʻale was expected around 9 am on August 1, 1938.  Some of the longshoremen started to gather as early as 6:30 am, and by 8:30 the majority of the unionists began to arrive.

Over two hundred men and women belonging to several different labor unions attempted to peacefully demonstrate against the arrival of the SS Waiʻaleʻale in Hilo.

Without any specific order, the crowd formed up and began to march down singing as they went, “The more we get together, together, together; The more we get together, the better we’ll be!” While in the back the women were singing, “Hail, hail the gang’s all here.”

They were met by a force of police officers who tear gassed, hosed and finally fired their riot guns into the crowd.  In the scuffle, at least 16 rounds of ammunition were fired: seven birdshot and nine buckshot.

When it was over, fifty people, including two women and two children, had been shot; at least one man bayoneted and another’s jaw nearly broken for speaking up for his fallen brother.

In the confusion and uncertainty of the moment, the remaining, uninjured unionists left the docks Monday afternoon and the Waiʻaleʻale was unloaded without incident. But that night a rally was held at Moʻoheau Park which was attended by a huge crowd.

Reminiscent of the violence unleashed in the West Coast Strike four years earlier, the Hilo shooting closely paralleled the San Francisco police attack of July 5th that had left two strikers slain and a hundred others wounded.

The West Coast event had been called Bloody Thursday; here, they were already calling August 1st Hilo’s Bloody Monday.

The strike was soon settled.

A Grand Jury found: “That evidence is not sufficient to warrant an indictment against any person or group of persons”.  The union subsequently filed a lawsuit for damages, which they lost.

Lots of information and images here are from Hawaii-edu and The Hilo Massacre: Hawaii’s Bloody Monday, August 1st, 1938 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Center for Labor Education & Research, 1988.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hāmākua

In very ancient times, the lands were not divided and an island was left without divisions such as ahupuaʻa and ʻili, but in the time when the lands became filled with people, the lands were divided, with the proper names for this place and that place so that they could be known.  (Kamakau)
 
Prior to European contact, each of the major islands or independent chiefdoms in the Hawaiian chain comprised a mokupuni (island.) Over the centuries, as the ancient Hawaiian population grew, land use and resource management also evolved.
 
Each island was divided into several moku or districts, of which there are six in the island of Hawaiʻi, and the same number in Oʻahu. There is a district called Kona on the lee side and one called Koʻolau on the windward side of almost every island.  (Alexander)  The moku of Hawaiʻi Island are: Kona, Kohala, Hāmākua, Hilo, Puna and Kaʻū.
 
Initial settlement of the Hawaiian Islands is believed to have occurred along the wetter windward sides of the Islands, along the fertile coastline.    On Hawaiʻi Island, that included Hāmākua.
 
Waipi‘o (“curved water”) is one of several coastal valleys on the north part of the Hāmākua side of the Island of Hawaiʻi. A black sand beach, three-quarters of a mile long, fronts the valley, the longest on the Big Island.
 
For two hundred years or more, Waipiʻo Valley was the Royal Center to many of the rulers on the Island of Hawaiʻi, including Pili lineage rulers – the ancestors of Kamehameha – and continued to play an important role as one of many royal residences until the era of Kamehameha.  (UH DURP)
 
Royal Centers were where the aliʻi resided; aliʻi often moved between several residences throughout the year. The Royal Centers were selected for their abundance of resources and recreation opportunities, with good surfing and canoe-landing sites being favored.
 
In 1872, Isabella Bird traveled by horseback along the Hāmākua coast from Onomea to the Waipiʻo Valley and described the landscape she travelled through. The journey was over very rough and steep trails and took five days.  Bird noted, “this is the most severe road on horses on Hawaiʻi, and it takes a really good animal to come to Waipiʻo and go back to Hilo.”
 
The Isabella Bird description that follows helps give a perspective of what Hāmākua was like about 150-years ago:
 
“The unique beauty of this coast is what is called gulches – narrow, deep ravines or gorges, from one hundred to two thousand feet in depth, each with a series of cascades from ten to eight hundred feet in height.”
 
“I dislike reducing their glories to the baldness of figures, but the depth of these clefts cut and worn by the fierce streams fed by the snows of Mauna Kea, and the rains of the forest belt, cannot otherwise be expressed.”
 
“The cascades are most truly beautiful, gleaming white among the dark depths of foliage far away, and falling into deep limpid basins, festooned and overhung with the richest and greenest vegetation of this prolific climate, from the huge-leaved banana and shining breadfruit to the most feathery of ferns.”
 
“Each gulch opens on a velvet lawn close to the sea, and most of them have space for a few grass houses, with cocoanut trees, bananas and kalo patches. There are sixty-nine of these extraordinary chasms within a distance of thirty miles!”
 
“We had a perfect day until the middle of the afternoon.  The dimpling Pacific was never more than a mile from us as we kept the narrow track in the long green grass, and on our left the blunt, snow-patched peaks of Mauna Kea rose from the girdle of forest, looking so delusively near that I fancied a two hours climb would take us to his lofty summit.”
 
“The track for twenty-six miles is just in and out of gulches, from one hundred to eight hundred feet in depth, all opening on the sea, which sweeps into them in three booming rollers. The candlenut or kukui tree, which on the whole predominates, has leaves of a rich, deep green when mature, which contrast beautifully with the flaky, silvery look of the younger foliage.”
 
“Some of the shallower gulches are filled exclusively with this tree, which in growing up to the light to within one hundred feet of the top, presents a mass and density of leafage quite unique, giving the gulch the appearance as if billows of green had rolled in and solidified there.”
 
“The descent into the gulches is always solemn. You canter along a bright breezy upland, and are suddenly arrested by a precipice, and from the depths of a forest-draped abyss a low plash or murmur arises, or a deep bass sound, significant of water which must be crossed, and one reluctantly leaves the upper air to plunge into heavy shadow, and each experience increases one’s apprehensions concerning the next.”
 
“It is wonderful that people should have thought of crossing these gulches on anything with four legs, formerly, that is, within the last thirty years, the precipices could only be ascended by climbing with the utmost care, and descended by being lowered with ropes from crag to crag, and from tree to tree, when hanging on by the hands became impracticable to even the most experienced mountaineer.”
 
“In this last fashion Mr. Coan and Mr. Lyons (missionaries from Hilo and Waimea) were let down to preach the gospel to the people of the then populous valleys. But within recent years, narrow tracks, allowing one horse to pass another, have been cut along the sides of these precipices, without any windings to make them easier, and only deviating enough from the perpendicular to allow of their descent by the sure-footed native-born animals.”
 
“All the gulches for the first twenty-four miles contain running water. The great Hakalau gulch which we crossed early yesterday, has a river with a smooth bed as wide as the Thames at Eton. Some have only small quiet streams, which pass gently through ferny grottoes.”
 
“The path by which we descended looked a mere thread on the side of the precipice. I don’t know what the word beetling means, but if it means anything bad, I will certainly apply it to that pali.”  (Byrd)
 
In more modern times, sugar defined the landscape.  Production started with initial smaller plantations that later merged into larger facilities.
 
The Hāmākua Mill Company was first established in 1877 by Theo Davies and his partner Charles Notley, Sr.  In 1878, the first sugarcane was planted at the plantation and Hilo Iron Works was hired to build a mill. The mill was located at Paʻauilo.
 
By 1910, it had 4,800-acres planted in sugarcane and employed more than 600 people. The company ran three locomotives on nine miles of light gauge rail. There was a warehouse and landing below the cliff at Koholālole where ships were loaded by crane.
 
In 1914, the Kūkaʻiau Mill Company became a part of the Hāmākua Mill Company. In 1917, the Kūkaʻiau mill was sold and moved to Formosa (Taiwan.)
 
In 1917, the Hāmākua Mill Company was renamed the Hāmākua Sugar Company. The Kaiwiki Sugar Company was merged with the Theo H Davies Company-owned Laupāhoehoe Sugar Company on May 1, 1956 and operations were merged with the latter beginning January 3. 1957.
 
In 1978, the Hāmākua Sugar Company, Honokaʻa Sugar Company and the Laupāhoehoe Sugar Company were merged to form the Davies Hāmākua Sugar Company. 
 
In 1984 the Davies Hāmākua Sugar Company was bought by Francis Morgan and renamed the Hāmākua Sugar Company (1984-1994). The Hāmākua Sugar Company operated until October of 1994, and its closing marked the end of the sugar industry at Hāmākua, as well as the Island of Hawaiʻi.