Hawaii | Page 229 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

April 30, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Beaver Block

Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was a fur trading company that started in Canada in 1670; its first century of operation found HBC firmly focused in a few forts and posts around the shores of James and Hudson Bays, Central Canada.

Fast forward 150-years and in 1821, it merged with North West Company, its competitor; the resulting enterprise then spanned the continent – all the way to the Pacific Northwest (modern-day Oregon, Washington and British Columbia) and the North (Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.)

On January 21, 1829 the Hudson’s Bay Company schooner ‘Cadboro’ arrived at Honolulu from Fort Vancouver. While the HBC fur trade focused furs of beavers, sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska to be sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods, their interest in Hawaiʻi was to sell lumber and other goods, not furs.

When the Hudson’s Bay Company entered the Hawaiian scene in 1829, Honolulu had already become a significant Pacific port of call and major provisioning station for trans-Pacific travelers.

The earliest location of the Agency in Honolulu was on the north side of Nuʻuanu Street (between King and Merchant Streets,) where it occupied a two-story, shingle-sided building.

“The premises were named “Aienui,” meaning “great debt,” perhaps in reference to the Company’s liberal policy of granting credit on reasonable security, such as was and still is granted to the Indians on their prospective winter catch.” (The Beaver, June 1930)

In 1846 the Agency moved to a new site closer and more convenient to the waterfront at the corner of Fort and Queen Streets. They had a two-story coral building with slate roof, fronting on Queen Street, and one-story storage building along Fort Street.

Thereafter, the location of their establishment became known as the “Beaver Block,” named after the HBC ‘mascot’ (and primary economic resource,) the beaver.

As the year 1859 started, Pacific whaling entered its decline, HBC’s competition in the importation of goods increased. Janion Green and Co (forerunner of Theo H Davies), Hackfeld and Co (forerunner of Amfac,) C Brewer, and Castle and Cooke (the beginnings of the Big Five) were established firms.

Instructed to wind up affairs in 1860, the last Company representative left Honolulu in March 1861. The Company’s old Fort and Queen business site, however, continued to be known as the Beaver Block. Other businesses moved into the premises.

Twenty years passed, during them, Lunalilo ascended to the throne and died within a year; his estate took control of the property and their trustees sold it to James Campbell. In 1882, Campbell built a new building and put the old iron beaver weathervane of the Hudson’s Bay Company on its roof – affirming the Beaver Block tradition.

“Thousands of Honolulans who pass up and down Fort Street and visit the wharves have probably never lifted their eyes high enough on such trips to notice on the Makai-Waikiki cornice of the Campbell block at Fort and Queen Streets a weather-beaten weather vane, with the letter “N” missing from that particular arm and to notice that the vane itself resembles a well-known forest and stream animal…. It took a visitor from Winnipeg, Canada, to notice that the animal was a beaver …” (Advertiser, March 31, 1930; The Beaver)

Beaver Block was a large building that included uses such as storage, shops and offices that stretched along Fort Street and Queen. That year, Campbell, who owned the adjacent land (fronting Fort and Merchant Streets) built the “Campbell Block,” a similarly-large building that included uses such as storage, shops and offices.

“The activity of building, throughout Honolulu and its suburbs, continues. That in the business portion of the city gives it the most substantial aspect of any years undertaking, the most prominent of which is the Campbell Block, extending from the Bank premises on Merchant street around onto Fort street to join the Beaver Block …. In the buildings that have been constructed a more lavish style is observed, and ornamentation externally and internally is now the rule rather than the exception, both in business houses and private dwellings.” (Hawaiian Almanac and Annual, 1884)

The first elevators in Hawai‘i were installed in the early 1880s. One was in the Beaver Block, a two-story structure at Fort and Queen Streets, completed in 1882. (The elevator was replaced by an electric elevator.)

Another pioneering elevator was located near the front of a two-story brick building occupied by Wing Wo Chan & Co., on Nu‘uanu Avenue between King and Merchant Streets. This structure was lost in the 1886 Chinatown fire.) (Hawaiian Historical Society)

A notable Beaver Block tenant was GW MacFarlane & Co, shipping and general wholesale merchants. George W. MacFarlane was born in Honolulu in 1849. He got a job with Theo Davies in 1868 and stayed with the firm until 1876.

McFarlane became a prominent attendant to King Kalākaua and merchant in Honolulu during the 1870s-1880s. He was also associated with Spreckels and other financiers in sugar interests. He died in 1921.

Another tenant in the building was the Beaver Saloon, opened on April 5, 1882 by HJ Nolte (who also had “The Casino” on his property at Kapiʻolani Park.)

The Beaver Saloon was “a favorite lunch resort for a large majority of the business element, the civil service, the factory and waterfront toilers, judges, lawyers and doctors … (and) has indeed been the most frequented noonday club in Honolulu, a recognized exchange for public opinion and clearing house for community gossip.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 29, 1907)

Then, on October 11, 1964, the Sunday Star-Bulletin and Advertiser noted, “Office-Parking Building Planned by Campbell Estate on Fort Street.”

Plans called for a combined office and parking structure to replace the 2-story on Fort and Merchants Streets; this new building was considered an important part of the redevelopment of downtown Honolulu. (Adamson) The Beaver Block and Campbell Block buildings were torn down and a new building was completed in May 1967.

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Beaver_Weathervane-HBC-Honolulu-(TheBeaver)

Carved wooden beaver for the Hudson's Bay Company store, Honolulu-HSA-PP-37-4-009

Hudson Bay Co Beaver On Branch Pendant Tag

The_Beaver,_No._4,_March_1932,_outfit_262,_Hudson's_Bay_Company_Publication

Beaver_Saloon-Casino-advertisement-Daily_Bulletin-Aug_12,_1885

Downtown_Honolulu-Building_ownership_noted-Map-1950-noting_Beaver_Block

Fort St near makai-Waikiki corner with Queen St-King St crossing in distance-1880s-Beaver_Block_to_Left

Fort_St-left are G.W. Macfarlane & Co., Gency Hall's Safe & Lock Co, and H.J. Nolte's Beaver Saloon-HSA-PP-38-6-012

Hudson_Bay_Company,_Honolulu,_by_Paul_Emmert-1853

Kalakaua_aboard_the_U.S.S._Charleston-Colonel_George_W_Macfarlane_is_behind_the_King-(WC)-1890

MacFarlane_advertisement-(AllAboutHawaii)

View of Queen Street, Honolulu in 1857, left, Hudson's Bay store-right work begun on the demolition of 1816 fort wall-1857

Waikiki-Kaneloa-Kapiolani_Park-Monsarrat-Reg1079 (1883)-The_Casino-noted

Hudson_Bay_Company-Honolulu_Layout-Beaver_Block

Downtown and Vicinity-Dakin-Fire Insurance- 4-Map-1891-notin_Beaver_Block

Honolulu and Vicinity-Dakin-Fire Insurance- 04-Map-1906-noting_Beaver_Block

April 29, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Continuation School

(The 1909 Report of the Public School Fund Commission carried a paper, Our Children, Our Schools, and Our Industries, by Andrew S. Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction, New York State.)

He noted “We have exploited the fundamental principles of our democracy in our politics and in our religion much, more completely and satisfactorily than in our education or in our industries. The application of those principles to our training and our work of hand is now to be pressed to conclusions.”

“The usefulness of our society to the individual depends upon the character and the efficiency of the units who comprise the mass.”

“The worth of the individual to the State, on the other hand depends upon the common acceptance of the principles of the Golden Rule, as well as upon the ambitions which are inspired by the common thinking and the prevalent anxiety and aptitude of the people for work.”

“Whether the work be intellectual or manual has; nothing to do with the right of the toiler to respect and regard.”

“Individual success and the growing strength of a people must come, if it comes at all, through steady application by growing numbers, through increasing competency, through sound living, and through the slow accretions of goods and of esteem.”

“It would be an appalling and pathetic mistake for a people to think that subtlety and greed can become the basis of either personal or national prosperity.”

“Economic conditions have forced combinations. The disappearance of individual responsibility in the corporation and the labor union, has wrought havoc with old-fashioned thinking and with moral fiber.”

“The time must soon come when the man in the corporation shall be stopped from using the common power of the people to oppress rather than to aid the people, and when the man in the union shall be stopped …”

“… from using the organized strength of his fellows to do the least he can for his wage, and from debasing himself through subtle antagonism to the people for whom he works, or a heavy shadow will rest upon the pathway of the Republic.”

“The man in the union, and all the rest of us, both in this generation and the next, must be aided more completely by the schools, and to do that some radical changes in the basis, the thought, and the plan of the schools seem imperative.”

“The child must have his chance, – an equal, open, hopeful, chance. But he must not be misled. His chance is in work. It is in his becoming accustomed to discipline, to direction, to industry, and to persistence, before he is sixteen years of age.” (Draper 1909)

In that same report the Maine Superintendent of Schools stated, “Of all the larger educational movements of the time probably no other is destined to have so far reaching influence as that which seeks to introduce into our school work a more distinctly utilitarian purpose than has before been recognized.”

“The general object of the introduction of this purpose has been so much under recent discussion that it is hardly necessary to repeat this here. We are learning, however, from the experience of other people, that it pays in every sense to train for efficiency in action as well as for efficiency in thinking, and that, I conceive, is the underlying motive of a right sort of vocational training.”

“We are recognizing that in the discharge of its duty to itself the State is bound to consider as much the man who is to work with his hands as it does him whose labor is to be of the head; indeed that is the rightly organized industrial state …”

“… there can be no complete separation of one from the other, and, therefore, that productive industry is entitled to men trained to co-ordinate hand and brain in a higher, better and, therefore, more profitable workmanship.” (Maine Superintendent)

Draper added several recommendations to his paper, including:
• Require attendance at seven years of age, instead of eight, and let it continue, in elementary school or trades school, to seventeen, but excuse from attendance before eight, at the parents’ request, on the ground of immaturity, and also excuse from attendance whenever the work in the elementary school and trades school is completed, or after fifteen if the child is regularly at work,

• Establish schools for teaching trade vocations, the work to begin at the end of the elementary school course, and continue for three years. Let the trades schools be open both in the day time and evening.

• Establish continuation schools, to be open mainly in the evenings, where the work shall be of a, general character, suited to the needs of youth who are employed through the day and are not doing the work in the trades schools

• In other words, make our evening schools more general and better. Let the work in the continuation schools go perhaps half way or more through the high school course, but with less formalism about it.

• Shorten the time in the elementary schools to seven years. Take out what it is not vital for a child to know in order to learn or to do other things for himself. Assume that he will learn and do things on his own account, if he has the power.

• Strive to give him power, and expect that through it he will get knowledge. Stop reasoning that mere information will give him power. Stop the dress parade and pretense about teaching, which consume time unnecessarily.

• Push the child along and aim to have him finish the elementary school in the fourteenth year. When he is fifteen send him to the trades school whether he has finished the elementary school or not.

• Assume that if the child does not go to the high school, his school work may end with his seventeenth, and not in his fourteenth, year.

• Put into the elementary schools, from the very beginning, some phase of industrial work. Up to the last year or two let it be work that can be done in the schoolroom, at the desks, under the ordinary teachers, and will occupy two or three hours a week. This might proceed from folding paper, molding sand, modeling clay, outlining with a needle, to the simple knife work in wood, plain sewing, knitting, and the like. In the last year or two send the classes to central rooms specially prepared, perhaps to the trade schools, for more complex wood work, cooking, etc. Always emphasize the drawing.

• As the child comes to the end of the elementary schools, expect him to elect whether he will go to the high school, to a trades school, or to work.

• Wherever he goes, expect that the schools will keep track of him until he is at least seventeen. If he goes to the trades school, expect him to get into the possession of the fundamental knowledge and something of the skill of a trade by his seventeenth or eighteenth year.

• If he goes to work in a store or factory, expect him to come to the continuation school till his seventeenth year is completed. Have him and, his parents understand that he is responsible to the schools until he is perhaps eighteen years old.

• Set up trades schools in spacious, but not necessarily ornate buildings. Start the particular kind of trades schools that the business of the town and the interests of the trades call for.

• Let it be understood that wherever there are a sufficient number of children to learn a particular trade, there will be a school to teach it to them. Let the trades school partake more of the character of the shop’ than of the school.

Hawai‘i had continuation schools. “The aims of the continuation school in Hawaii are to give the employed boy or girl, 14 to 18 years of age, a better understanding of the work and world about him, to help him use his leisure time wisely and to give him guidance in his work and other problems.” (US Office of Education, 1935)

“The continuation school is conducted under an instructor furnished by the Territorial department of public instruction. The purpose of the continuation school is to offer an opportunity to those who for some reason or other did not complete or feel that they did not receive as much education as they would like to have had.”

“In order to attend the school, the employee must sacrifice a half day of work each week without pay. This is a hard and fast rule of the continuation school system over which we have no control. Classes are held daily from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., with the exceptions of Saturdays and Sundays, but each class only attends school once a week.”

“For the first semester beginning September 1937, 47 employees have enrolled. English is compulsory. Other subjects are typing, shorthand, community civics, social science, shop work, and journalism.” (Congress, Joint Committee on Hawaii, 1937)

The image shows the Territorial Normal School – it’s not a continuation school, The Normal School is where teachers were taught.

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April 28, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Totem Poles

At about age 15, George Vancouver joined the navy and spent seven years under Captain James Cook when Cook commanded the first European exploring expedition to visit the Hawaiian Islands, on Cook’s second (1772-74) and third (1776-80) voyages of discovery.

Later, captaining his own expedition and charged with exploring the Pacific region of the North American continent, Vancouver surveyed what we now know as British Columbia, including Vancouver Island (named after him.)

During those expeditions, Captain George Vancouver returned to Hawaiʻi three times, in 1792, 1793 and 1794. There, he completed the charting of the Islands begun by Cook and William Bligh.

He met with Kamehameha and exchanged gifts. When Kamehameha came aboard the ship, taking Vancouver’s hand, he “demanded, if we were sincerely his friends”, to which Vancouver answered in the affirmative.

Kamehameha then said “he understood we belonged to King George, and asked if he was likewise his friend. On receiving a satisfactory answer to this question, he declared the he was our firm good friend; and according to the custom of the country, in testimony of the sincerity of our declarations we saluted by touching noses.” (Vancouver, 1798)

In the exchange of gifts, after that, Kamehameha presented four feathered helmets and other items, Vancouver gave Kamehameha the remaining livestock on board, “five cows, two ewes and a ram.”

The farewell between the British and the Hawaiians was emotional, but both understood that Vancouver would be returning the following winter.

Just before Vancouver left Kawaihae on March 9, 1793, he gave Isaac Davis and John Young a letter testifying that “Tamaah Maah, with the generality of the Chiefs, and the whole of the lower order of People, have conducted themselves toward us with the strictest honest, civility and friendly attention.” (Speakman, HJH)

During these trips, Captain George Vancouver visited Maui; he first landed in Māʻalaea Bay on the Kihei shoreline.

Vancouver described the area surrounding Māʻalaea Bay (March, 1793:) “The appearance of this side of Mowee was scarcely less forbidding than that of its southern parts, which we had passed the preceding day.”

“The shores, however, were not so steep and rocky, and were mostly composed of a sandy beach; the land did not rise so very abruptly from the sea towards the mountains, nor was its surface so much broken with hills and deep chasms…”

“… yet the soil had little appearance of fertility, and no cultivation was to be seen. A few habitations were promiscuously scattered near the waterside, and the inhabitants who came off to us, like those seen the day before, had little to dispose of. “ (Vancouver)

Fast forward to the 1960s; the 100-room Maui Lu was the only resort on Maui’s south shore. It was built by Canadian James Gordon Gibson and named after his boat (which was named after his wife, Louise.)

Gibson (November 28, 1904 – July 17, 1986 – nicknamed the “Bull of the Woods”) was a lumberman, politician, seaman, hotelier and author. In the 1920s, he and his brothers ran the Gibson Lumber and Shingle Company.

He was born in a cabin in the Yukon; at the time, his father was looking for the elusive gold. “Cash was virtually unknown to my family at this time.” (Gibson)

Gibson left school at the age of 12; “when I left school I was told I was such a dog that someone would have to feed me for the rest of my life or I would surely starve to death. It was then I determined in my mind that I would never again be at the bottom.” (Gibson)

He went to work at hand-logging, shingle milling and commercial fishing on the coast of Vancouver Island. Eventually, he made millions in lumbering. (Calgary Herald)

Later, he visited Maui and built a home in Kihei – he called it Fort Vancouver.

“As the palms grew, so did the number of guests at Fort Vancouver, as we loved to share our sunny home with our friends from the West Coast.” (Gibson) (Friends from Canada were his frequent guests.)

Planning a guest house, he arranged for sufficient lumber (5,000 board feet) to be shipped from Vancouver to Maui. When it arrived, “to my astonishment, I found not the 5,000 board feet I had expected but 50,000.” (Gibson)

This was the beginning of the Maui Lu resort. Gibson “figured that we might as well build ten guest houses, which later became known as the Maui Lu cottages in tribute to Louise. Instead of plain sloped roofs, they were built with upswung gables and peaked Polynesian eaves to salute the many Japanese Americans in Maui.” (Gibson)

By 1967, the Maui Lu Hotel was becoming very popular and Gibson built four four-plexes, naming them the Quadras as a reminder of Captain George Vancouver’s meeting on Vancouver Island with sen͂or Quadra. (Gibson)

Reportedly at his resort, Gibson had a totem pole which he had arranged to fly out from Nootka Sound, Canada to Maui. At its base was an inscription written in concrete that claimed that it was the first totem pole to fly the Pacific.

Gibson built a memorial to Vancouver near Vancouver’s reported initial Maui landing site, beachside of the entrance to the Maui Lu. (Spokane Daily Chronicle, December 19, 1969)

“The monument is an ancient boarding cannon recovered off Vancouver Island, and a giant clam shell. It is guarded by two totem poles from Vancouver Island.” (Vancouver Sun, December 19, 1969)

The totem poles are no longer at the makai memorial; they were damaged in a storm and not repairable (they were stored under one of the buildings at the hotel.)

Hilton Grand Vacations took over the Maui Lu site for the Maui Bay Villas, with work on the first phase slated for completion in the first quarter of 2021.

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Sunrise at Mai Poina Oe Iau Beach (Forget Me Not Beach) in Kihei across from the Maui Lu, where totem poles brought from Vancouver Island mark the area of Captain George Vancouver’s mooring when he visited Maui in three sucessive years (1792-94). Kihei, Maui, Hawaii

April 27, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Oʻahu Country Club

Nuʻuanu Ahupua‘a consisted of one of the largest valleys within the Kona District on the island of Oʻahu. The valley floor was wide and relatively flat due both to a late volcanic eruption at the head of the valley and to the heavy rains captured by Kōnāhuanui, the highest peak in the Koʻolau range.

An early historic account in 1820 by the missionary Hiram Bingham described the ahupua‘a of Nuʻuanu as viewed from ‘Punchbowl Hill’:

“Below us, on the south and west, spread the plain of Honolulu, having its fishponds and salt making pools along the seashore, the village and fort between us and the harbor, and the valley stretching a few miles north into the interior, which presented its scattered habitations and numerous beds of kalo in its various stages of growth, with its large green leaves, beautifully embossed on the silvery water, in which it flourishes …”

“Through this valley, several streams descending from the mountains in the interior, wind their way some six or seven miles, watering and overflowing by means of numerous artificial canals, the bottoms of kalo patches, and then, by one mouth, fall into the peaceful harbor.” (Bingham, Cultural Surveys)

Naʻeʻepa o Waolani is a proverb that refers to the magical ways of the menehune that are “the extraordinary ones of Waolani.” The proverb refers to magical ways that “can make big things happen from what may seem to be only small gestures.” (Kaʻikena)

Pukui notes of Waolani, “Kāne and Kanaloa lived here and here the first man, Wākea, was born.”

“In the valley of Waolani, a side valley from the great Nuuanu, stood one of the sacred Heiaus called Kawaluna, which only the highest chief of the island was entitled to consecrate at the annual sacrifice.”

“As Moi of Oahu the undoubted right to perform the ceremony was with Kualii, and he resolved to assert his prerogative and try conclusions with the Kona chiefs, who were preparing to resist what they considered an assumption of authority by the Koolaupoko chief. …”

“Kualii assembled his men on the ridge of Keanakamano, overlooking the Waolani valley, descended to the Heiau, performed the customary ceremony on such occasions, and at the conclusion fought and routed the Kona forces that had ascended the valley to resist and prevent him. The Kona chiefs submitted themselves, and Kualii returned to Kailua.” (Fornander II)

Thomas CB Rooke, hānai father of Emma (granddaughter of John Young and later wife and Queen of Kamehameha IV,) acquired Waolani Valley (“heavenly mountain area”) on the north side of Nuʻuanu Valley (as such it was also known as Rooke’s Valley.)

In 1906, a group of men selected land in Waolani Valley as the best site for the fourth golf club in the Islands; the new club was to be named Oʻahu Country Club.

The three existing courses at that time were the Moanalua Golf Club (built in 1898,) the Manoa Golf Club (1904) and the Haleiwa Hotel Golf Course (1906.) Of these, only the Moanalua Club is still in existence.

“The history of the movement toward the organization of the Country Club dates back two years, when a self-appointed committee visited the lands known as Waolani valley for the purpose of investigating its feasibility as a site for such an organization.”

“The committee found the land to be so splendidly adapted for the purpose that overtures were made to the owners of the property for a lease with an option of purchase.” (Evening Bulletin, April 6, 1906)

The group leased part of Waolani Valley for an annual rent of $900 in US gold coins. Two years into the lease, they decided to purchase the land outright and reportedly paid 6,000 sterling, the equivalent of $30,000 at that time, for the 378-acres.

The Club’s charter was approved by officials of the Territory of Hawaiʻi on June 8, 1906; thus was the founding of Oʻahu Country Club.

Construction of the first nine holes at Oahu Country Club golf course began in August 1906, and a formal opening of the 2,813 yard course was held on April 27, 1907.

Reportedly, the first golf ball struck at the club was hit by a woman, Annie Walker Faxon Bishop (wife of the Club’s first president, Eben Faxon Bishop.)

The second nine holes were completed in September 1913; the driving range was opened in 1988.

The original OCC Clubhouse was opened with the golf course on April 27, 1907, and in September of that year, two tennis courts were added. (The courts later deteriorated and were torn out due to lack of use.)

Clubhouse changes, renovations and expansions continued until July 31, 1970 when, after 16 months of construction, the present Clubhouse was opened on the same site.

Extensive changes have been made to the layout, lengthening the course to 5,820 yards and a par of 71.

Each year the course is home to the historic Manoa Cup. The Mānoa Cup was donated to Oahu Country Club by the Manoa Golf Club when Mānoa was disbanded in 1908.

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Oahu_Country_Club-early_years-(GaryWild)

Oahu_Country_Club-from_Alewa-(GaryWild)-1919

Oahu_Country_Club-looking_makai-(GaryWild)

Nuuanu Valley, Honolulu, Hawaii, circa 1900

Panaramic BW

Oahu_Country_Club-Land_Document-(GaryWild)

April 26, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waikīkī Ranch and Dairy

Jay P Graves, son of John James Graves (who made his fortune in mining, streetcar and railroad on the continent) purchased about 1,000-acres of land in 1904 and started Waikīkī Ranch.

Like others with means in the day, he built a mansion; it was designed by architect Kirtland Cutter. The Olmstead Brothers of Boston designed the gardens and water system, and the interiors were done by Elsie de Wolfe, America’s first well-known decorator.

Graves wanted the mansion to have a joyous atmosphere, which significantly influenced the Cutter design. The house has beautiful oak and maple floors, and unique molded-plaster ceilings.

Newspaper accounts note that a construction camp had been established on the property for the 25-100 workmen who were engaged in construction of the mansion. The camp was complete with a bunkhouse, commissary and mess tent.

The 23-room mansion and a number of smaller buildings were constructed at a cost of approximately $175,000 for construction and furnishings in 1911-1913.

Waikīkī Ranch had its own water system, which included a storage system of 100,000-gallons, as well as its own hydro-electric system, which provided all of the electrical requirements.

The beautiful staircase featured rare tigerwood and benches to sit. The one-piece carved alabaster light fixture was of exceptional size and typical of Cutters details; leaded glass was throughout the home.

For nearly twenty-five years Graves continued to make additions and alterations to the property, often with Cutter designs.

The Graves entertained many of the nation’s financial leaders and even royalty. Prince Albert, later King Albert of Belgium, was a visitor.

Waikīkī Ranch was said to have had the largest herd of thoroughbred Jersey Cattle in the Pacific. The dairy was well known throughout the world with breeding stock shipped as far away as China.

The Jersey was bred on the British Channel Island of Jersey. It apparently descended from cattle stock brought over from the nearby Norman mainland, and was first recorded as a separate breed around 1700.

Adaptable to hot climates, these are smaller cows are a popular breed due to the ability to carry a larger number of effective milking cows per unit area due to lower body weight, hence lower maintenance requirements and superior grazing ability (also the high butterfat content of its milk.)

The Waikīkī Dairy, founded in 1914, had its own special bottling, with bottles printed with brilliant red lettering around the bottom: “For the exclusive use of Waikīkī Dairy”.

In 1936, the mansion and remaining ranch property was sold to Mr. & Mrs. Charles E. Marr for $175,000. The Graves moved to Pasadena, California.

OK, before you exhaust yourself racking your brain trying to figure out where this 1,000-acre dairy/ranch was in Waikīkī … it wasn’t in Hawaiʻi, it was in Spokane, Washington.

But there are Hawaiʻi ties to the place.

Obviously the name, Waikīkī Ranch, is one. Graves had visited Waikīkī and noted the meaning of its name, ‘spouting waters.’ Since the ranch had 24-natural springs, Graves thought it an appropriate name for his property.

There’s more.

Lots of Hawaiʻi students go to college on the former ranch property.

Gonzaga University purchased the Waikīkī Mansion and 9-acres of land in 1964 for $500,000 with the intention of using it for retreats and other events.

In 1983, the Waikīkī mansion was renamed the Bozarth Mansion and Retreat Center in honor of area wheat farmer, Horace and Christine Bozarth, who gave a substantial gift to renovate the mansion and pay off the remaining debt.

Gonzaga students formed the Hawaiʻi-Pacific Islanders Club and host an annual lūʻau for students and area residents. Another Spokane school has Waikīkī Ranch ties; the ranch originally included the land on which Whitworth University is presently located.

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Milk Bottle from the Waikiki Dairy-Spokane

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Waikiki Ranch & Dairy - Bozarth Mansion and Retreat Center (Gonzaga)-GoogleEarth

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Gonzaga University-Hawaii Pacific Islanders Club

Gonzaga University-Hawaii Pacific Islanders Club-Luau