Hawaii Island | Page 31 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

March 20, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hokuloa Church

Lorenzo and Betsy Lyons arrived in the Hawaiian Islands as missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) on the ‘Averick’ on May 17, 1832. They were part of the large Fifth Company, including the Alexanders, Armstrongs, Emersons, Forbes, Hitchcocks, Lymans and others.

Ultimately, 17 missionary stations were created throughout the Islands; these became the centers for establishing outlying churches (each church served as a community gathering area and was typically accompanied by a school.)

By 1831 eleven hundred schools had been established by the missionaries. The schools were organized in the most populated areas and native teachers and lay-ministers were appointed to administer them.

On July 16 1832, Lyons replaced Reverend Dwight Baldwin as minister at Waimea, South Kohala, Hawai‘i. Lyons’ “Church Field” was centered in Waimea, at what is now the historic church ‘Imiola.

On October 15, 1840, Kamehameha III enacted a law that required the maintenance and local support of the native schools in all populated areas. By this time, one church and school each were established in Kawaihae and Puakō.

By 1851, the lands on which the churches and schools were situated were formally surveyed and conveyed to their respective administrative organizations. (Maly)

Lyons built fourteen churches in the expanse of his mission station including Waipi‘o Valley, Honokaʻa, Kawaihae and Puakō. Each of the churches represented the designs of New England congregational churches.

Each church was constructed of materials found where the church was built. Some were constructed of lava rock and some of wood. The churches at Kawaihae and Puakō were built of lava rock.

The construction of the Hokuloa Church (Hoku loa – ‘evening star’) in Puakō began in 1858 and was completed and dedicated March 20, 1860. It’s the oldest functioning lava rock structure in the district of South Kohala.

The building is rectangular in shape, approximately 25 feet by 40 feet. The original wooden floor was repaired several times; seriously damaged during the tsunami of 1960 and in 1967, it was replaced with concrete.

The 10-foot walls are constructed of lava rocks bound with burnt coral mortar. The side walls vary from two to three feet thick with the gabled ends being the thinner part.

Most of the wood used for construction of the building was hauled from forests growing at higher elevations. Some of the wood was brought by ship from the northwest US. The ships delivered the wood to the edge of the Puakō reef where it was dropped into the ocean and dragged to land.

The original shingled roof was replaced several times with metal sheet roofs and then again in 1990 with a fireproof shingle made of a composite material.

The bell tower houses the original bell purchased from New England for the church by Rev Lyons and installed for the dedication in 1860.

“The stone church, with its whitened walls, and reddened roof and humble spire give the place an air of civilization and religiousness, and the school house in close proximity with its similar walls though thatched roof, makes something of a show, and indicated the existence of a school.” (Lyons, 1863)

“This school carries 18 children on the register, but only 10 attended on the day I was there. The proficiency of the scholars was not very satisfactory. I am inclined to believe that ‘the Schoolmaster is abroad’ too much of his time, he living at Kawaihae too far from the school; but none other was to be had.” (School Inspector Gulick, 1865)

“Puakō is a village on the shore, very like Kawaihae, but larger. It has a small harbor in which naive vessels anchor. Coconut groves give it a verdant aspect. No food grows in the place. The people make salt and catch fish. These they exchanged for vegetables grown elsewhere.” (Lorenzo Lyons, 1835)

“This parish is from 13 to 18 miles SW of Waimea and consists of several small villages, one of which is Puakō. These villages are mostly beautified by tall waving coconuts groves – the lauhala , the loulu or low palm tree – and Kou tree – and some other shrubbery. “

“There are also fish ponds where the delicious mullet etc sport and valuable salt grounds, that furnish employment for both sexes.” (Lyons, 1863)

“This is the poorest parish in my field, rendered still poorer of late by the frequent rains that have prevented the people from making salt – one of their chief dependencies …”

“… the wind – rough weather, and the heat of the volcanic stream that entered the sea near this place have killed or frightened away all their fish and the second source of wealth. There remain the fruit of a few cocoa nut trees, and the lauhala from their leaf of which the women busy themselves in making mats.” (Lyons, 1859)

Rev Lyons died in 1886 at the age of 79. After Lyon’s death the trained ministers and lay leaders of the Imiola Church continued to lead regular worship services at the Puakō Church; the school also continued.

The Puakō school was closed in the 1920s and Ihe children from Puakō were sent to the Kawaihae school. However, students who wanted to progress beyond the ninth grade went to Kohala and Honoka‘a for the upper grades.

The Hokuloa Church was not completely abandoned, although regular services were no longer held. Church members from Imiola from time to time would come to the Puakō church to hold small worship and prayer gatherings. The building lost its roof and bell tower.

In the early 1950s Puakō lands were subdivided into more than 165 house lots and sold at public auction. But it wasn’t until the 1960s when most of the lots had been sold that they began to be used for vacation hideaways.

In 1960 a tsunami which originated in Chile inundated the northern end of Puakō and did extensive damage to the inside of the Hokuloa Church. By 1966, the National Park Service had surveyed the building, and a group of Puakō residents formed to begin repairs of the Hokuloa Church.

In 1990 the building was completely restored and a new congregation was established. (Lots of information here is from the Hokuloa National Register Nomination form.)

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Hokuloa Church

Hokuloa Church HABS-LOC General View

Hokuloa Church HABS-LOC Window

Hokuloa Church HABS-LOC Remnants of Belfry

Hokuloa Church HABS-LOC Entrance Door

Hokuloa Church HABS-LOC Cover

Hokuloa Church HABS-LOC Elevations

Hokuloa Church HABS-LOC Sections

Hokuloa Church HABS-LOC Plan-Details

Hokuloa Church – Site Plan -NPS

Hokuloa Church-HVB Warrior Marker

March 11, 2016 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

Kona Coast

“Her name was Woman … Her other name was Excitement … She belonged to Hawaiʻi’s Kona Coast like the surf riders and the beach bums.”

Whoa, let’s look back …

Richard Allen Boone was born June 18, 1917 in Los Angeles County, California; his father was a descendant of Squire Boone who was the younger brother of frontiersman Daniel Boone. Like Daniel Boone, Richard Boone had a heroic side: was an aerial gunner in the Navy during World War II. (Bloom)

Following the war, he studied with the New York Actors Studio on the GI Bill. In 1947 he made his Broadway debut with Judith Anderson’s Medea, and made his motion picture debut in 1951 in The Halls of Montezuma.

His career in motion pictures, often cast as a western badman (City of Badmen, The Siege at Red River, Man Without a Star, Robber’s Roost, Ten Wanted Men, Star in the Dust, The Tall T, Big Jake, The Shootist and Hombre) or the good guy (Dragnet, The Alamo, The War Lord and The Raid.) (ancestry)

In 1957, Have Gun-Will Travel (with Boone as Paladin) made its TV debut, and soon became one of the most popular programs of the fifties. It ranked in the top five almost immediately and after that trailed only Gunsmoke and Wagon Train for the rest of its run. The theme song, co-written by star Boone, even became a hit single.

Boone moved to and became a permanent resident of Honolulu in 1965 and was a regular commuter between Honolulu and Hollywood. He “considers himself the world’s most satisfied actor – because he can afford the luxury of living in the Hawaiian Islands and working in Hollywood”. (Chicago Tribune, October 35, 1968)

While living on Oʻahu, it was Boone who helped persuade Leonard Freeman to film Hawaiʻi Five-O exclusively in Hawaiʻi. Prior to that, Freeman had planned to do “establishing” location shots in Hawaii but principal production in southern California.

Boone and others convinced Freeman that the islands could offer all necessary support for a major TV series and would provide an authenticity otherwise unobtainable. (Correa)

Then, in 1967, Boone (with Vera Miles, Joan Blondell, Kent Smith, Duane Eddy and a bunch of folks from Kona) filmed ‘Kona Coast,’ a pilot that he hoped CBS would adopt as a series. (Instead, CBS chose Hawaii Five-O.) (It was released in 1968 – with its premier in the Kona Theater.)

“Kona Coast” was an adventure story about a Honolulu charter-boat captain (‘Sam Moran,’ played by Boone) who leads fishing expeditions and later hunts down the man responsible for his daughter’s death.

It did not receive favorable reviews; “… most of Kona Coast utilizes actual locations and this is the film’s single greatest asset.” (Pfeiffer)

Kona Coast Movie Trailer

Kona Coast Movie Preview

The story often takes you to a bar, Akamai Barnes (run by a man of the same name – in real life it was later the Red Pants; today, it’s a vacant lot under the banyan tree on Aliʻi Drive in the middle of Kailua Bay.)

Later (1970,) the bar was the scene of a brawl – “Chuck Norwood pulled a .45-caliber handgun and shot and killed another man. Although he claimed he blacked out and does not remember what happened, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 35-years in prison.”

“Norwood, 48, was elected to one of the 13 seats on Hawaiʻi’s Board of Education (1984.) While in prison, Norwood attended classes at Leeward Community College. In 1975, he was paroled and elected student body president.” (Reading Eagle, November 7, 1984) Norwood served back to back two terms (1976-1977) as Associated Students of the University of Hawaiʻi president.

In 1971, Richard Boone moved to his wife’s hometown of St Augustine, Florida where he taught acting classes at Flagler College. Richard Boone died January 10, 1981 in St Augustine of throat cancer. At the time of his death, he was serving as cultural ambassador for the State of Florida.

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Kona Coast Movie Poster

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January 30, 2016 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

ʻAilāʻau

The longest recorded eruption at Kilauea, arguably, was the ʻAilāʻau eruption and lava flow in the 15th century, which may be memorialized in the Pele-Hiʻiaka chant. It was the largest in Hawaiʻi in more than 1,000-years.

The flow was named after ʻAilāʻau was known and feared by all the people. ʻAi means the “one who eats or devours.” Lāʻau means “tree” or a “forest.”

ʻAilāʻau was, therefore, the forest eating (destroying) fire-god. Time and again he laid the districts of South Hawaii desolate by the lava he poured out from his fire-pits. (He was the fire god before Pele arrived at Hawaiʻi Island.)

He was the god of the insatiable appetite; the continual eater of trees, whose path through forests was covered with black smoke fragrant with burning wood, and sometimes burdened with the smell of human flesh charred into cinders in the lava flow.

ʻAilāʻau seemed to be destructive and was so named by the people, but his fires were a part of the forces of creation. He built up the islands for future life. The flowing lava made land. Over time, the lava disintegrates and makes earth deposits and soil. When the rain falls, fruitful fields form and people settled there.

ʻAilāʻau still poured out his fire. It spread over the fertile fields, and the people feared him as the destroyer giving no thought to the final good.

He lived, the legends say, for a long time in a very ancient part of Kilauea, on the large island of Hawaii, now separated by a narrow ledge from the great crater and called Kilauea Iki (Little Kilauea).

The ʻAilāʻau eruption took place from a vent area just east of Kilauea Iki. The eruption built a broad shield. The eastern part of Kilauea Iki Crater slices through part of the shield, and red cinder and lava flows near the center of the shield can be seen on the northeastern wall of the crater.

The eruption probably lasted about 60 years, ending around 1470 (based on evaluation of radiocarbon data for 17 samples of lava flows produced by the ʻAilāʻau shield – from charcoal created when lava burns vegetation.) The ages obtained for the 17 samples were averaged and examined statistically to arrive at the final results.

The radiocarbon data are supported by the magnetic declination and inclination of the lava flows, frozen into the flows when they cooled. This study found that these “paleomagnetic directions” are consistent with what was expected for the 15th century.

Such a long eruption naturally produced a large volume of lava, estimated to be about 5.2 cubic kilometers (1.25 cubic miles) after accounting for the bubbles in the lava. The rate of eruption is about the same as that for other long-lasting eruptions at Kilauea.

This large volume of lava covered a huge area, about 166 square miles (over 106,000-acres) – larger than the Island of Lānaʻi. From the summit of the ʻAilāʻau shield, pāhoehoe lava flowed 25-miles northeastward, making it all the way to the coast.

Lava covered all, or most, of what are now Mauna Loa Estates, Royal Hawaiian Estates, Hawaiian Orchid Island Estates, Fern Forest Vacation Estates, Eden Rock Estates, Crescent Acres, Hawaiian Acres, Orchid Land Estates, ʻAinaloa, Hawaiian Paradise Park and Hawaiian Beaches. (USGS)

After a time, ʻAilāʻau left these pit craters and went into the great crater and was said to be living there when Pele came to the seashore far below.

When Pele came to the island Hawaiʻi, she first stopped at a place called Keahialaka in the district of Puna. From this place she began her inland journey toward the mountains. As she passed on her way there grew within her an intense desire to go at once and see ʻAilāʻau, the god to whom Kilauea belonged, and find a resting-place with him as the end of her journey.

She came up, but ʻAilāʻau was not in his house – he had made himself thoroughly lost. He had vanished because he knew that this one coming toward him was Pele. He had seen her toiling down by the sea at Keahialaka. Trembling dread and heavy fear overpowered him.

He ran away and was entirely lost. When he came to that pit she laid out the plan for her abiding home, beginning at once to dig up the foundations. She dug day and night and found that this place fulfilled all her desires. Therefore, she fastened herself tight to Hawaii for all time.

These are the words in which the legend disposes of this ancient god of volcanic fires. He disappears from Hawaiian thought and Pele from a foreign land finds a satisfactory crater in which her spirit power can always dig up everlastingly overflowing fountains of raging lava. (Westervelt)

The ʻAilāʻau flow was such a vast outpouring changed the landscape of much of Puna. It must have had an important impact on local residents, and as such it may well be described in the Pele-Hiʻiaka chant.

Hiʻiaka, late on returning to Kilauea from Kauaʻi with Lohiau, sees that Pele has broken her promise and set afire Hiʻiaka’s treasured ʻōhiʻa lehua forest in Puna. Hiʻiaka is furious, and this leads to her love-making with Lohiau, his subsequent death at the hands of Pele, and Hiʻiaka’s frantic digging to recover the body.

The ʻAilāʻau flows seem to be the most likely candidate because it covered so much of Puna. The timing seems right, too – after the Pele clan arrived from Kahiki, before the caldera formed (Hiʻiaka’s frantic digging may record this), and before the encounters with Kamapuaʻa, some of which probably deal with explosive eruptions between about 1500 and 1790. (Information here is from USGS and Westervelt.)

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Ailaau Flow-Kīlauea summit overflows-their ages and distribution in the Puna District, Hawai’i-Clague-map

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Age and Distribution of Lava Flows in Kilauea-USGS

Kilauea-Byron-1825

January 25, 2016 by Peter T Young 13 Comments

William Hardy Hill

He reportedly came to Hawaiʻi and jumped a whaling ship, and stayed. (Maui Council)

“Doc Hill (William Hardy Hill) was kind of the maverick businessman in Hilo … (he) eventually, became probably the most influential businessman on this island.” (Henderson)

“Doc” acquired his moniker for selling eyeglasses, after he came to the Big Island in 1913; he opened the Hill Optical Co in the Young Kwong Hoy building in 1917 (between what is now the Kress bldg. & Basically Books.)

License No. 1 under the 1917 legislation to Regulate the Practice of Optometry was granted to Hill; he was a charter member of the Optometry Board of Examiners.

“He had some experience in optics from a job in a jewelry store back on the Mainland, so when he noticed a display of 40-cent eyeglasses in a Chinese store he persuaded the proprietor to let him have four dozen pair on credit. These he peddled to aging Orientals in the plantation camps for $4, on easy payments.” (Star Bulletin, June 6, 1970; Schmitt)

Although the published biographical sketches of Hill mention only a grammar school or high school education, he reportedly possessed a Doctor of Optics degree from Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology. (Schmitt)

Doc added his jewelry business in 1919, and both his optical and jewelry businesses were among the largest in the Territory. When he was elected to our Territorial House of Representatives in 1928, Doc sold his optical and jewelry businesses to his bookkeeper, Freiderich Wilheim “Fritz” Koehnen. (Narimatsu)

“(O)nce you become associated with Doc Hill, you get very much involved with politics.” (Henderson) Hill was a member of Hawaiʻi territorial house and senate (he was senate president 1932-1959;) delegate to Republican National Convention from Hawaii Territory, 1944; member of Hawaii state senate, 1959-67.

Sometimes irascible, oft times flamboyant, but always keenly analytical and astute in his approach to the problems of the day. Senator Hill contributed greatly to the work of the legislature and to the development of the 50th State. (Congressman Matsunaga)

After President Dwight D Eisenhower signed the proclamation welcoming Hawai‘i as the 50th state of the union on August 21, 1959, the First Legislature of the State of Hawai‘i convened on August 31, 1959, in accordance with the Hawai‘i State Constitution.

During this 45-day First Special Session of 1959, the Senate elected Senator William H. Hill of the first senatorial district as Senate President. Senator Hill stated in his Opening Day remarks:

“This session of the Legislature is the most important that Hawai‘i has ever had and without a doubt will be the most important that will ever be known in Hawai‘i because in this session the die will be cast for future sessions.”

“Doc could go on telling you stories forever. (He’d say, ‘You gotta do things when you can, not when you can’t.’ In other words, if there’s a deal to be made or something that you want done, you do it when you can, and that means right now”. (Henderson)

‘Little Doc,’ his talking mynah bird joined him “(e)very year until the bird died In 1965, ‘Little Doc’ was brought from Hilo by his master to alt caged outside of the Senator’s ʻIolani Palace office – whistling at the wahines and saying ‘Vote for Doc Hill’ in true campaign style.”

Perhaps the ceremonial highlight of Doc’s Senate career came in 1967, when he appeared during one of the extended days of the session dressed in a kimono.

“Mr. President,” he said. “I have been humiliated, insulted and shunned the past few days and it’s all your fault. Last Thursday, Mr. President, I arose on this floor to tell you of rumors that the Senate might not adjourn as scheduled the next day.”

“I told you that my wife was going back home to Hilo In a few hours and wanted to know how many shirts she should leave for me In Honolulu. And you told me – before this body – that she should leave only one shirt.”

“Along about Saturday, I began to notice that when I would approach a group of senators I thought were my friends, they would scatter or else get upwind of me. I wondered what was wrong. Had I voted wrong on one of their pet measures?”

If ever the term Elder Statesman fit a man. It fit Doc. After many years in the inner circle of power In Hawaii government, age and the Democratic ascendancy In the Senate moved him back into the ranks during the late 1960s.

But really, Doc Hill never took a back seat to anyone in speaking his piece on the Senate floor. And age which slowed his step hasn’t yet worked its way up to the quick mind beneath that Caesar-like haircut. (Congressman Matsunaga)

It’s well known that Senator WH ‘Doc’ Hill of Hilo is a capitalist, period. (Honolulu Record, December 6, 1956)

“(Doc Hill) eventually got control of, at that time, the Hilo Electric Light Company (later known as Hawai’i Electric Light Co, (and the) General Motors dealership. … (He also had) Wailoa Motors, which operated a major tire-recapping facility that dealt mainly with the sugar plantations cane haul trucking tire needs”.

We had nine theaters around the island … (Hilo Theatres, Ltd) … I might say the theater business was a very good business before television arrived.” (Henderson)

He organized ‘Realty,’ a holding company in 1926; it was parent company to several of his holdings. (Realty was later renamed Realty Investment Co, Ltd.)

He also had “Hilo Thrift and Loan (Hilo Finance and Thrift Co., Ltd,) that eventually became what is known as Realty Finance. Doc was involved in “all kinds” of real estate ventures (land; built and bought businesses; developments, etc.)

From 1954 to 1973, Big Island developers, including Realty Investment Co Ltd, won permission to chop up thousands of acres in Lower Puna and sell them off into thousands of individual lots. (Dayton) Most of the subdivisions were created prior to the adoption of the Zoning Code in 1967. (Puna CDP)

Mainland marketing pieces for Puna subdivisions noted, “Your Future Is Here! If you’ve ever wanted to own property in Hawaii, it pays you to act now. Combine investment with pleasure in the 50th State of the Union.”

“William H Hill, says in his (Hilo Electric Report) that ‘the vast water supply, temperate climate and other natural resources, many still untapped, make the Big Island the Territory’s most valuable land area for economic development and location of new industry’.” (Salt Lake Tribune, April 10, 1960)

Hill and his wife Ouida and large homes in Hilo and Kona, and has hosted notable visitors for decades’ John Wayne and Pilar Palette were married on the grounds of his Keauhou Bay estate on November 1, 1954. ‘Doc’ Hill died in 1970.

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Doc Hill Estate at Keauhou

W.H. “Doc” Hill, far right, and Richard Henderson, second from right-PBN

Director John Farrow (left), John and Pilar Wayne at Doc Hill’s Home in Kona

January 24, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Laupāhoehoe

The northeastern coast of the island of Hawaiʻi presents an almost continuous succession of valleys, with intervening uplands rising gently for a few miles, and then more abruptly toward the snows of Mauna Kea and the clouds.

The rains are abundant on that side of the island, and the fertile plateau, boldly fronting the sea with a line of cliffs from fifty to a hundred feet in height, is scored at intervals of one or two miles with deep and almost impassable gulches.

The streams reach the ocean either through rocky channels worn to the level of the waves, or in cascades leaping from the cliffs and streaking the coast from Hilo to Waipiʻo.

In the time of Līloa, and later, this plateau was thickly populated, and requiring no irrigation, was cultivated from the sea upward to the line of frost. A few kalo patches are still seen, and bananas grow, as of old, in secluded spots and along the banks of the ravines. (Kalākaua)

“Lapahoi (Laupāhoehoe – leaf of lava) is a small stony flat with a few huts and sweet potatoes and taro patches scattered over it. It lies at the extremity of a deep ravine, the declivities on either side nearly 500 feet in height and extending to the sea beach, terminating in a rocky precipice.”

“The coast all the way to Lapahoi was intersected by many deep ravines, many of which had large rivers forming beautiful waterfalls that fell over the outward cliffs into the ocean, the angry surf of which broke a long way up upon the rocks underneath.” (Macrae, 1825)

“The country, by which we sailed, was fertile, beautiful, and apparently populous. The numerous plantations on the eminences and sides of the deep ravines or valleys, by which it was intersected, with the streams meandering through them into the sea, presented altogether a most agreeable prospect.”

“The coast was bold, and the rocks evidently volcanic. We frequently saw the water gushing out of hollows in the face of the rocks, or running in cascades from the top to the bottom.”

“After sailing very pleasantly for several hours, we approached Laupāhoehoe: although we had come upwards of twenty miles, and had passed not less than fifty ravines or valleys, we had not seen a spot where we thought it would be possible to land without being swamped”.

“(A)lthough we knew we had arrived at the end of our voyage, we could discover no place by which it seemed safe to approach the shore, as the surf was beating violently, and the wind blowing directly towards the land.” (Ellis, 1823)

In January 1834, David Douglas (a fir tree was named after him) visited the island of Hawai‘i, traveled around the base of Mauna Kea – including the upper Laupāhoehoe forest zone – and ascended Mauna Kea; while on his second visit to the island, he died at a location near the mauka boundary of Laupāhoehoe and Humuʻula.

In 1859, Abel Harris and FB Swain entered into a partnership and secured a section of land on the Laupāhoehoe peninsula and lower plains; they ran a trading station and attempted to undertake several business ventures, including, collection of pulu (down) from hāpuʻu tree ferns, hunting bullocks in the upper forest lands, and cultivation of sugar cane on the lowlands.

The lowlands of the Laupāhoehoe region became the focus of sugar plantation efforts as early as the 1850s. But it was not until 1876, that a full-scale plantation was incorporated, and a mill established.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.

As elsewhere, sugar cultivation exploded on the Big Island. As a means to transport sugar and other goods, railroading was introduced to the Islands in 1879. All the sugar grown in East Hawaiʻi, in Puna and on the Hāmākua Coast, was transported by rail to Hilo Harbor, where it was loaded onto ships bound for the continent.

The rail line crossed over 12,000-feet in bridges, 211-water openings under the tracks, and individual steel spans up to 1,006-feet long and 230-feet in height.

Some of the most notable were those over Maulua and Honoliʻi gulches, the Wailuku River and Laupāhoehoe. Over 3,100 feet of tunnels were constructed, one of which, the Maulua Tunnel, was over half a mile in length.

While the main business of the railroad remained the transport of raw sugar and other products to and from the mills, it also provided passenger service.

Targeting tourists to augment local passenger and raw sugar transport, the Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway ran sightseeing specials under the name “Scenic Express.”

Not for the faint of heart, rail trips included a stop on the trestles, where passengers disembarked to admire the outstanding scenery.

But the end was near for the railway. Early in the morning of April 1, 1946, a massive tsunami struck Hawaiʻi. The railroad line between Hilo and Paʻauilo suffered massive damage; bridges collapsed, trestles tumbled and one engine was literally swept off the tracks.

At Laupāhoehoe Point, waves destroyed teachers’ residences and flooded school grounds, killing twenty-five people, including sixteen students and five teachers of Laupāhoehoe School.

(The 1946 tsunami killed 159-people and caused $26-million in property damage throughout the islands. To prevent such widespread loss of life and property, the territory-wide Tsunami Warning System was put in place in 1948 and successfully utilized for the 1952 and 1957 tsunamis.) (hawaii-edu)

At the time of the tsunami, plantations were already phasing out rail in favor of trucking cane from the field to the mill. It was inevitable that trucking would also replace rail as the primary means of transporting sugar to the harbor. The tsunami accelerated that transition.

A few remnants of the railway are still visible. In Laupāhoehoe, a concrete platform remains where Hula dancers once performed for tourists. And the Laupāhoehoe Train Museum is housed in the former home of Mr. Stanley, the superintendent of maintenance.

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