Hawaii Island | Page 29 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 26, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Palace Theater

Bakers Beach, in Hilo Bay between Reeds Bay and Pier 3 is named for prominent Hilo businessman Adam Baker. It’s manmade; the coral rubble and sand are spoil materials from the dredging operations that enlarged the Hilo Harbor basin. They were deposited on the shore here between 1925 and 1930.

The newly created beach fronted Baker’s three-story house; with its beautiful lawns, rock gardens and large fruit and shade trees, it was a famous landmark. Baker was the son of John Timoteo Baker, the last appointed governor of the Big Island under the Hawaiian monarchy. (Clark)

“When Adam Baker and some of the oriental moving picture managers approached the Sheriff and asked for the needed permit for Sunday shows, he turned his back to their request and answered, ‘There’s nothing doin’ …”

“And ‘nothing doin’’ it was for July 4, the first Sunday on which the law was in effect, despite the tearful pleas of the theater men, who saw many dimes and quarters going astray, amid the holiday crowd in town, because there were no movies to be seen.” (Hawaiian Gazette, July 13, 1915)

That didn’t stop Baker in the theater business; with the Empire across the street and the Gaiety and others nearby, on October 26, 1925, at 6:30 pm, the New Palace opened its doors to an eager crowd, showing its first movie at 7:30, ‘Don Q: Son of Zorro,’ starring Douglas Fairbanks. Also shown were the short films ‘The Clodhopper’ and ‘Traps and Troubles.’ (Haleamau)

The New Palace Theater, part of a small family of theaters owned and operated by Adam Charles Baker (1881-1948) was built at the peak of the heyday for American movie palaces.

Baker’s New Palace was built on a scale that had never been seen outside of Honolulu. The original stadium seating arrangement on a sloped floor, predating stadium seating in modern theaters, accommodated 800 seats and allowed for unobstructed sight lines.

The building was constructed of redwood imported from the Pacific Northwest. (Valentine) Fourteen huge redwood columns supported the wooden roof trusses which span the entire width of the building.

Designed and built in the days before electronic sound amplification systems, the Palace boasts excellent natural acoustics for live musical groups and drama.

The early shows were silent films; in 1929, a 3-manual (keyboards,) 7-rank (sets of pipes) Robert-Morton pipe organ was built in Van Nuys, California, shipped and installed in the Palace Theater. Shortly after, Johnny DeMello became the house organist, accompanying the silent films and giving other performances.

The Empire was first to exhibit a talkie, ‘The Voice of the City,’ in Hilo on October 9, 1929. The New Palace’s first talkie, shown on October, 16, was ‘Mary Pickford’s Coquette’ (Pickford’s talkie debut). Management of the two theaters decided to take turns exhibiting silent and talkie movies. (Haleamau)

In 1931, The Palace Theater was sold to Consolidated Amusements, Ltd and closed shortly thereafter for renovation; Consolidated began showing first run movies. Baker continued on as the New Palace’s assistant manager, but retired on January 9, 1932, to travel.

By December 10, 1937, the Palace became not only the first theater, but the first building on the island to be fully air-conditioned when WA Ramsay Ltd., installed a Carrier system.

The Palace would close for renovation once more on April 25, 1940, after that night’s showing of ‘All Women Have Secrets’ (the movie debut of Jeanne Cagney, younger sister of James). It reopened on May 26, 1940. (Haleamau)

That year, the pipe organ (and Johnny DeMello) moved from the Palace Theater to the Hilo Theater (which opened on April 25, 1940 with 1,037 seats.) A few years later (1946,) a massive tsunami hit the Hilo Theater and damaged the organ console.

Johnny returned to Honolulu and in 1955 he was appointed house organist at the Waikiki Theatre and played there until his retirement in 1978.

The organ console was removed and sent to Honolulu for repairs. Unfortunately, in 1960, a second tsunami hit Hilo, and the Hilo Theater. The organ console was washed over the seats to the auditorium back wall where it broke apart.

Hilo Theater closed for good following the tsunami and the building was demolished in 1965. The Palace Theater survived the two tsunami. However, in 1984, Palace Theater closed and was used as Consolidated Theaters’ storage of the highly flammable film in a vault.

In 1990, the building was acquired from Consolidated and structural repairs were undertaken. For the past 10+ years, the non-profit ‘Friends of the Palace Theater’ has worked to restore and upgrade the theater building.

And, through numerous grants, business and individual donations, and a lot of hard work, the theater is open with independent films, concerts and other live performances. (Fundraising and further restoration are ongoing.) (Lots of information here is from Hilo Palace and Haleamau.)

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Johnny DeMello at the Organ in the Palace-ca 1932

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October 7, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Villa Franca

By the nineteenth century Italy had been divided into a number of competing states for over a thousand years. The French, Austrians and Spanish had all dominated at different periods.

At the start of the French Revolutionary Wars the Austrians controlled Lombardy and Tuscany, while branches of the Bourbon family ruled in Parma, Modena and Naples. Much of central Italy was ruled by the Pope, forming the Papal States.

After the final defeat of Napoleon the pre-war status quo was almost restored. The Bourbons returned to Naples, the House of Savoy to Piedmont-Sardinia and the Habsburgs to Lombardy. The Papal States were restored.

Italy didn’t settle down under the restored status-quo. A series of revolutions broke out across the country. Some of the fighting was between the French and Austrians (Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Franco-Austrian War.)

“The war which had broken out in Northern Italy (was) brought to a close by the peace of Villa Franca”. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 17, 1859)

Wait, this is not about Villa Franca in Italy … let’s look at Hawai‘i.

The archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine islands, situated in the Atlantic Ocean; the Azores are divided into three districts, subdivided into nineteen “conulhos” (municipalities) with 120 “freguezias” (parishes) – Villa Franca do Lamqo (is one, with 4,000 inhabitants.) (Daily Press, December 25, 1885)

“The last official census of this Kingdom acknowledged here 9,377 Portuguese; but, as the Luso Hawaiiano justly remarked some time ago, that number is far short of the actual truth…”

“… the above figures do not include the last arrival of immigrants 370 In the Dacca nor does It enumerate the number of Portuguese children born in this country, which go into the ‘foreigners, Hawaiian-born,’ nor the children of Portuguese married to Hawaiian or half-white women, which go under the heading of ‘half-castes.’”

“It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the Portuguese colony in these Islands numbers now over 10,500 souls, which makes one-eighth of the total population.”

“Thus they have become quite an important element amongst us, and as very few of them, if any, come from Portugal itself, the majority of them having come from the Azores …” (Daily Press, December 25, 1885)

As the population grew, one developer looked to market a Hilo subdivision to provide a place for them to live.

“Villa Franca is the name of the Waiākea addition to Hilo, thrown open for settlement by CS Desky of Honolulu. It will without doubt become purely a Portuguese villa and Mr Desky anticipating this has named the streets now being constructed, Lisbon, Lusitana and Funchal.” (Evening Bulletin, May 12, 1897)

“(H)e bought some land most unprepossessing in an out-of-the-way part of Hilo and cut it up into 96 lots of about 1/8 of an acre per lot and sold every lot for $100 per lot. That was a selling price of $800 per acre (at) Villa Franca …” (The Friend, October 1916)

It seems his marketing worked, early owners in Villa Franca includes Antonio, Carvalho, da Camara, da Costa, Francisco, de Gouvea, Medina, Rocha, da Silva, Souza, Soares, Santos, Serrao, Liborio, Medeiros …

It appears Desky didn’t name the streets as initially planned; the area is now just mauka of the County and State municipal buildings in Hilo, with Panaʻewa, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea as some of its streets (bounded by Hualālai, Kinoʻole, Kilauea and Wailoa River.)

One historian called Desky ‘Hawaii’s first subdivider;’ he developed a variety of residential and commercial properties all over the Islands. Villa Franca was described as “a working class neighborhood”.

“A few years ago even the most progressive citizens of the Paradise of the Pacific would state that there was ‘nothing in real estate’ in Honolulu, and every man with money was chasing after sugar stock or doubling his coin in the business which justly, if not politely, must be described as usury.”

“New blood and fresh ideas were wanted to shake up the community from the lethargy in which every body apparently had fallen.” (The Independent, April 25, 1898)

“One day CS Desky arrived on the scene, and it didn’t take him very long before he had realized the wonderful opportunities which the islands offered …. Desky treated the public to surprise after surprise. …” (The Independent, April 25, 1898)

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Villa Franca Ad-Hawaiian Star-Feb_24,_1898

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September 23, 2016 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

Riverside School

The Wailuku is the longest river in Hilo (twenty-six miles.) Its course runs from the mountains to the ocean along the divide between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.

Waiānuenue Avenue (rainbow (seen in) water) is named for the most famous waterfall, Ka Wailele ʻO Waiānuenue, Rainbow Falls on the Wailuku River.

For a while, other than church-related schools, if a Big Island youngster wanted to pursue his education beyond the eighth grade, he had to travel to O‘ahu. There he would board and go to school. (HHS)

Then, “One of the largest gatherings that ever attended a mass meeting in Hilo was present at Fireman’s Hall Thursday night to express to Superintendent of Public Instruction WH Babbitt their views regarding a high school site and other school matters.”

“The atmosphere of the hall was fairly charged with incipient trouble, which later broke into a storm of words and bitterness.”

“Chairman Mason called for expressions of opinion upon the subject under discussion. There was a dead silence for an interval, when LA Andrews started the ball rolling, by stating there were two things upon which there was a unanimity of sentiment in Hilo.”

“The first was the necessity for a high school in Hilo and the second the selection of the Riverside lot as the high school site. TJ Ryan offered a resolution, which passed without opposition …”

“… stating that it was the sense of the meeting that the high school should be erected on the Riverside lot.” (Hilo Tribune, December 12, 1905)

“After considering the various sites suggested, the committee practically determined on the lot on which now stands the Riverside School.”

“The present lot is not quite large enough to accommodate both the Riverside and the High Schools, which latter will be a nine-room building, and if a portion of the hospital grounds can be secured, the mauka portion of the Riverside lot will be used for High School purposes. (Hilo Tribune, June 29, 1905)

School authorities hesitated but finally agreed to start a high school at Hilo Union School in September, 1905; 25 ninth-grade students attended high school at Hilo Union School.

In 1907, the school moved to the Riverside School. It was then called Hilo Junior High School. By the time the first class graduated in 1909, only 7 of the original 25 were left.

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)

With limitations for space, in 1911, “(t)he bandstand at Moʻoheau Park has been converted into a schoolroom by the county fathers, on account of the fact that the accommodations at the Riverside School are inadequate and the County has no funds at present with which to build an addition.” (Hawaiian Star, February 27, 1911)

“This class formerly occupied the basement of the Riverside building and it was so damp in the present weather that it was thought best to make the change.” (Hawaiian Star, February 27, 1911)

Finally in 1922, Hilo Junior High School moved up Waianuenue Avenue and renamed to the permanent and present Hilo High Campus. As years passed, the campus flourished with more buildings, students and educational experience. (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.

Riverside got its school site. In the early 1920s, American-born parents called for the development of separate education for their children.

Consequently, the development of “English Standard” schools, sometimes called “Select Schools” since a level of proficiency in English language was required.

While most of the people who attended the schools were of American-born parents, anyone with the ability to speak proper English was allowed to attend. 1925 marked the beginning of segregating students by ability to speak and write English.

In 1927, a Parent-Teacher group in Hilo petitioned the legislature for funds to construct a new English Standard school which had an attendance of 169 children sharing facilities with Hilo Union School.

Just before its opening in 1929, the Hilo Tribune Herald reported: “It is a one-story frame building with Spanish type arched porches and when complete will be one of the most attractive school buildings on the island.”

By 1948, English Standard sections in various schools were replacing separate schools as the next generation of immigrant children became proficient in English. In 1955, two rooms were added to the original E-shaped structure.

In 1956, the porte cochère, or covered drive-through/passenger drop-off, was constructed. A garage driveway was also added in 1956. Riverside became the Hilo District Office for the Department of Education in 1959. (HHF)

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Riverside School-NPS

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Riverside School (future Hilo High class of 1960) – Hagar

August 9, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hotel Honokaʻa Club

In 1878, three commercial sugar plantations (Honokaʻa Sugar Company, Paʻauhau Sugar Company and Pacific Sugar Mill) existed in Hāmākua in the vicinity of a village that later became Honokaʻa.

A labor shortage beginning in the mid-19th century prompted the importation of foreign workers. The Chinese were the first to arrive, followed by Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Puerto Rican and Filipinos over the next 40 years.

The workers, many married with families, were housed in 13-camps along the Hāmākua coast near Honokaʻa. As these workers completed their contracts with the plantations, many moved to Honokaʻa and began businesses, providing the impetus for the development of the town.

As Honokaʻa grew and evolved, a variety of businesses, offering wide-ranging choices of goods and services, eventually made Honokaʻa the largest town on the Hāmākua coast and the second largest on the island (behind Hilo.)

In 1910, the population of Honokaʻa stood at 9,037, a population sufficient to support a hotel along with lodging for travelers, salesmen and laborers in transit to the plantations to support the growing village.

Hotel Honokaʻa Club did not have a name when it first opened, and was allegedly labeled as the result of a vote by club “members,” who were likely boarders and community members who frequented the hotel.

The “Club” in the name reflects the use of the establishment from its inception as a nexus for entertainment and drinking, while the hotel portion served as a residence and lodging for immigrants, unmarried sugar cane workers, paniolo (cowboys), and travelling salesmen. (Star Bulletin; March 25, 1948; NPS)

“At that time the majority of the key plantation men were unmarried, and it was their custom to convene on Saturday nights for merry and lengthy sessions at the hotel. They came on horseback and departed the same way although not always with the same horse.”

“As years went by the hotel became the ‘club’ with all its members and eventually in a duly called ‘committee’ hearing the name was voted to become the Honokaa Club Hotel.” (Star Bulletin; March 25, 1948; NPS)

The original site of the hotel complex lay along the Government Road (Māmane Street) on the Hilo-side of the present Bank of Hawaiʻi.

The hotel/club functioned as a local gathering place that provided accommodations, temporary sales space for the display of commercial samples and wares by traveling salesmen, and a dining room and bar facility (that was the site of numerous local social occasions and get-togethers from the 1920s through the 1960s and beyond.) (SHPD)

Salesmen who stayed at the hotel were known as “drummers” commercial travelers, runners or “gripmen” (“grip” referring to the trunk or suitcase carried by salesmen.) These sales personnel travelled through Hāmākua and Kohala approximately every two weeks in a circuit from Honolulu to Kawaihae to Laupāhoehoe to Hilo “drumming up” business. (Star Bulletin, March 25, 1948; NPS)

The Hotel Honokaʻa Club is an example of the small hotels built at the turn of the 19th century by Japanese immigrants to mainly serve their countrymen in towns such as Captain Cook, Waiʻōhinu, Kohala and Honokaa.

Opened in 1912 by Kumakichi Morita, the original Honokaʻa Hotel Club was styled like a modern motor court, with rooms strung together in a row.

By 1915 it is listed in the local business directory as the “Honokaʻa Hotel Club – A First Class Hotel and Boarding House, Rates $3.00 per Day and Up.” By 1920 rates had increased to $4.00 per day. The Hotel Honokaa Club was at the present location by about 1927.

Kumakichi Morita, the hotel’s first manager/owner, trained as a chef in American cuisine and became chef to Prince Jonah Kūhīo Kalanianaʻole. Unfortunately, the Prince did not appreciate the American cuisine and Kumakichi looked elsewhere for employment, arriving in Honokaʻa to cook for the manager of the Honokaʻa Sugar Company.

From 1943-1945, over 50,000 US Marines lived and trained in and around Waimea and the Kohala Coast. Camp Tarawa was originally built by the 2nd Marine Division, but upon the 2nd’s deployment to Saipan, the 5th Marine Division moved in to train for the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Alfred Carter (manager of Parker Ranch) had historically limited the availability of liquor in Waimea, so when the Marines came they found that town dry.

The soldiers simply followed the Waimea ranch cowboys down the hill to “wet” Honokaʻa. Hotel Honokaʻa Club was one of many “watering holes” in Honokaʻa that benefited from the servicemen’s patronage. Camp Tarawa closed in November 1945.

After the war, the hotel expanded its activities focusing on locals, hosting weddings, high school group gatherings and lūʻau events. In 1948, the hotel expanded, adding a second story containing six bedroom suites. Five new bedrooms were added downstairs and new bathrooms were attached to the original bedrooms.

In 1960, the Moritas added a cocktail lounge dubbed the “Waipiʻo Room,” and in the 1970s they inaugurated a bar named the “Dan McGuire Left-Handed Martini Room,” after the well-known sports writer.

Further pranks related to the Martini Room included Jim Nabors’ (Gomer Pyle) dedication of the “Jim Nabors Right-handed Pay Toilet.” (Honokaa Historical Project)

Hotel Honokaa Club is a two story-wood frame “plantation style” commercial building. Defining features include a totan (corrugated metal) roof, single wall construction with vertical wood planks, and numerous double-hung windows.’

The building has three floor levels that include the main floor, a rear second story addition and a basement area. (Lots of information here is from Historic Honokaʻa Project and NPS.)

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Hotel-Honokaa-Club-1950 Honokaa High School yearbook advertisement

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-1958 Honokaa High School yearbook advertisement

Hotel-Honokaa-Club-Victor Morita with hotel guest ca. 1940s

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Hotel-Honokaa-Club-Victor Morita preparing food in the kitchen with unidentified waitress, ca. 1940s

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Hotel-Honokaa-Club-Victor (left of center) and Tomiko (right of center) Morita’s wedding party. Mother Kane Morita is in white, ca. 1920s

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August 2, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘My Heart Went Pitty-Pat’

She was born January 2, 1905 in Cleveland, the daughter of an Australian opera singer and an American vaudevillian. She spent most of her youth in Cincinnati, where she was enrolled in the city’s music conservatory.

Her family had been theatrical players and, as a result, she had been to Australia, Mexico, Canada, Europe and even Hawai‘i while growing up. She followed her family into the entertainment industry making a career as a dancer; her stage name was Norma Allen.

Just out of high school, she had eloped with a graduate of the Harvard dental school who was also a musician and moved to London, England. After a few years of traveling around Europe and competing in ballroom dancing competitions, the couple broke up.

Needing to support herself, she decided to continue dancing and to learn to teach as well. By marrying she had given away her opportunities to go to college. As she recalled, “they wouldn’t take married girls at Wellesley.”

While working at Arthur Murray’s dance studio in New York City, she had the opportunity to come to Hawai‘i to teach dance at “the Boleyn-Anderson studio at the Royal Hawaiian hotel.”

While in high school, she claimed to have seen a photograph of a man in a movie magazine posing with Douglas Fairbanks Sr and Mary Pickford; impressed by the “handsome, athletic young Hawaiian” whom the couple had “discovered,” she saw this was a chance to meet him.

She arrived on the Lurline just after Christmas in 1938. Several months later, she asked for an introduction to the man she had dreamed about as a teen-ager.

When she finally met the man (the most eligible bachelor in the islands, fifteen years older than she) “my heart went pitty-pat.”

While she claims it to be “love at first sight,” he took the relationship more cautiously. They dated for a year.

He almost lost her toward the end of 1939. While spending Christmas on the Big Island with friends she mulled over a marriage proposal from one of her “dancing pupils” who “was much younger than (him) and very wealthy.”

This young man “begged her to marry him and move to the mainland.” She called her earlier suitor to wish him a Merry Christmas. During the conversation she also told him about the proposal and he simply told her, “Baby, come home.” She did.

On August 2, 1940, the couple slipped out of Honolulu on an interisland flight.

Duke Paoa Kahanamoku and Nadine Alexander were married in Mokuʻaikaua Church in Kailua-Kona. A small intimate ceremony ensued with the Reverend Stephen Desha presiding.

“(O)ur attendants were Francis I‘i Brown, Duke’s best friend, and Francis’s lady companion, Winona Love, a fine hula dancer and movie star, and Bernice Kahanamoku.” Also in attendance were Kahanamoku’s brother Sam, Bernice’s fiancée Gilbert Lee, and Doris Duke, who had come with Sam.

They stayed at Francis Brown’s vacation home on the waterfront on the Kona-Kohala Coast. Nadine recalled it was “a charming place. Isolated. No Telephone. They had one of those generators as there was no electricity, which was lovely for Duke, but it wasn’t my cup of tea.”

Duke thoroughly enjoyed his honeymoon as “every morning, before the sun would come up, Francis would throw stones on the roof to wake Duke.” Nadine reflected, “he’d jump up, have a cup of coffee, and the two of them would go out fishing. All day, every day.”

They became Honolulu’s unofficial ‘first couple,’ frequently entertaining dignitaries and celebrities at their Black Point home. “They were a striking couple. They were awful good looking together.”

“Duke was always very well groomed and she looked very dainty next to him. She was a very pretty woman and kept getting prettier as she got older. Her features became very delicate and she became rather fragile.”

“She always dressed well and looked very elegant. She took pains with her appearance. I admired the fact that she was always vivacious and interested in everything, and a good sport.” (Aileen Riggin Soule, Olympic gold medalist (diving, 1920) Duke’s teammate on the 1920 and 1924 Olympic swimming and diving teams)

Duke died January 22, 1968; upon Nadine’s death on July 17, 1997, their estate was donated to the John A Burns School of Medicine to be used for scholarships awarded to medical students of Hawaiian ancestry. (UH) (All information here is from Nendel and Luis & Bigold.)

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Duke and Nadine Kahanamoku-Married-Mokuaikaua-August 2, 1940-BM