Hawaii | Page 333 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

July 12, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

La Pietra

Papaʻenaʻena heiau was situated on the side of Lēʻahi, Diamond Head. It was referred to by early writers as “Lēʻahi heiau.”

Papaʻenaʻena was reportedly built by Maui King Kahekili to commemorate his conquest of Oʻahu. This heiau was destroyed in about 1856 and its stones were carted off to Waikīkī for use as rock walls and driveways.

During the Mahele this site was given by the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi to the future King Lunalilo. After the king’s death this site was sold to James Campbell, in 1883. Later, Walter F. Dillingham bought the land from Campbell.

In 1910, Walter Dillingham married Louise Gaylord. Bucking the current trend of wealthy families living in Mānoa, Mr. Dillingham chose to build his new bride a home on a dry and – at the time – remote area on the slopes of Diamond Head.

With the help of famed Chicago architect, David Adler, they built a home similar to the Villa La Pietra they admired in Tuscany while on their honeymoon.

Three elements compose the central structure. One is facing the northward toward the Koʻolau range, one westward to the Waianae range, and one southward to the sea.

All three face inward on a flagged courtyard surrounded by a pillared arcade. In the center of the courtyard is an Italianate fountain, which was used to cool the building when the breeze swept through the structure.

The building is a composite of villa, as noted by Grace Tower Warren, Island Hostess: An Italian Villa in Hawaii, Paradise of the Pacific, Vol. 63:
“Many people have had the idea that La Pietra is a copy of my aunt’s villa in Florence of the same name, the one In which Mr. Dillingham and I were married, but such is not the case”, said Mrs. Dillingham.

“It is a composite of several of the beautiful villas in Florence to which my aunt, Mrs. Acton, took me, The facade facing the Waianae Mountains and the town is copied from the Villa Cambreia, The facade facing the Koolau Mountains is a replica of the de Medici villa in Florence. Our architect was David Adler, and he beautifully combined and coordinated the designs and ideas we loved…”

Mr. Dillingham and Adler did not work together in person. At the time Adler was designing another residence in New York. So Mr. Dillingham sent Mr. Adler detailed measurements and contour maps of the site, and photographs showing the setting in which the villa would stand.

With that, La Pietra – meaning The Gem or The Rock – was born.

The Dillingham home was completed in 1922 and included 5 bedrooms, a swimming pool, a formal dining room, horse stables, servants’ quarters, tennis courts, and a game/pool table room.

Architecturally, the home is described as “An extensive two-story “Italian villa” in an imposing terraced setting overlooking Kapiʻolani Park, Waikiki Bay and Honolulu; an example of the “Mediterranean Revival” period which had some popularity in Honolulu, as on the mainland.”

For the next 40 years, La Pietra was a social center for Honolulu’s wealthy and famous, with visitors to the estate including Franklin D. Roosevelt and Walt Disney.

Upon Mr. Dillingham’s death in 1963, Punahou School gained ownership of La Pietra and used it for faculty housing; the property was eventually sold to the newly formed Hawaii School for Girls in 1969.

With its start at Central Union Church, Hawaii School for Girls then renamed and relocated to La Pietra – Hawaii School for Girls, an independent, college preparatory school for girls, which consisted of nine founding teachers, 210 girls and Head of School, Joseph Pynchon.

Over the years, various enhancements were made to the campus. A six classroom building named in honor of Mrs. Cooke was dedicated in January 1977.

The athletic complex, completed in 1987, was named in honor of Mrs. Anthony in 2008. Bachman Science Center was built in 1997. Most recently, the school renovated its library to create Hawaii’s first all-digital school library.

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La Pietra

Walter_Francis_Dillingham-(WC)

July 11, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kalaupapa Field System

Molokai Island can be divided into three ecological regions based on rainfall, exposure to northeast trade winds and landform: (1) the wet, windward valleys of the north shore, (2) the dry, leeward valleys of the south shore, and (3) the arid rocklands of the island’s west end.

The Kalaupapa Peninsula, located at the western end of these valleys, is a unique landform formed by a volcanic rejuvenation centered on the Kauhakō Crater (about 330-thousand years ago,) at the base of the north shore’s cliffs.

Archaeological and carbon-dating evidence indicate that the initial settlement and presence of people on the Kalaupapa (“the flat plain”) peninsula on the Island of Molokai was between 800 and 1200.

Next to the peninsula is a distinctly-different, wet ecological zone with sediment soils distributed at the bottoms of the short Waihānau and Wai‘ale‘ia Valleys, the large Waikolu Valley and along the base of the cliffs.

Based on archaeological studies, the northern portion of the peninsula has “two main types of agricultural complexes … alignments with enclosures around them, and alignments without enclosures”. The density of plots within the later type suggested “possible intensification of an earlier field system”.

Identified as the Kalaupapa Field System, there is a grid of rain-fed plots, defined by low stone field walls built, in part, to shelter sweet potatoes and other crops from trade winds, that cover the Kalaupapa Peninsula.

It appears that the field system was a secondary area of settlement and agricultural development, with the wetter valley and sediment soil being the preferred areas.

Like other windward areas, wind erosion is a problem. To address this, long, narrow linear plots (defined by low field walls,) are packed densely together in locations exposed to the northeast trade winds. In addition, plots were in swales between boulder outcrops.

Initial theories suggested the entire field system was primarily the result of a historic boom in the production of potatoes for “gold rush” markets in California.

Recent work by various teams of archaeologists, which included surveys in different ecological zones – specifically, the peninsula and several valleys – revealed a well-preserved archaeological landscape across the region.

Instead of enclosed fields associated with the more recent historic era, archaeologists found dense rows of unenclosed alignments and substantial house sites quite unlike the temporary shelters found in other Hawaiian field systems.

The findings suggest that early agricultural development in the area started well before the “gold rush” exports and was first concentrated in valleys (with permanent streams) and, perhaps more significantly, that most of the Kalaupapa Field System was likely to have been built before European contact.

Although limited cultivation in dryland environments may have begun as early as 1200 and continued through the 13th century, widespread burning across the Kalaupapa Peninsula, which archaeologists suggest signals of the beginning of the Kalaupapa Field System, does not commence until 1450-1550.

It appears that not only is there a correlation between rich, geologically young soils and Hawaiian dryland intensive agricultural systems, but also the creation of these large-scale systems around 1400 appears to have been nearly simultaneous in both windward and leeward districts.

Then, between 1650 and 1795, there were increases in the peninsula population, indicated by house sites, rock shelters, an animal enclosure, a possible shrine and a site interpreted as a men’s house (mua.)

In terms of agriculture, there is good evidence that people continued to actively cultivate the entire area throughout this period.

Following the abandonment of the field system at the end of the 18th century, settlement shifted to small house sites spread along the coast and local roadways.

The introduction of cattle in 1830 caused the construction of large, architecturally-distinct walls to protect fields and yards from roving animals.

In 1849, portions of the fields were reactivated and intensified to supply potatoes and other crops to California’s “gold rush” markets.

The Kingdom of Hawaiʻi instituted in 1865 a century-long program of segregation and isolation of patients with Hansen’s Disease (leprosy) and patients were banished to the isolated peninsula of Kalaupapa, displacing resident families.

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Kalaupapa_Field_System_Walls-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Walls-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Field-Plot-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Field_Plot-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Zones-(SJSU-McCoy)-Map

Kalaupapa_Field_System-densely packed windbreak field walls are visible from the air-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-(SJSU-McCoy)-Map

Kalaupapa_Field_System-(SJSU-McCoy)-Island_Map

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Illustration_of_Erosion-Zones-(SJSU-McCoy)-Map

July 10, 2019 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Japanese Internment

During World War II, Japanese Americans were incarcerated in at least eight locations in Hawaiʻi.

These sites that include Honouliuli Gulch, Sand Island, and the U.S. Immigration Station on Oahu, the Kilauea Military Camp on the Big Island, Haiku Camp and Wailuku County Jail on Maui, and the Kalaheo Stockade and Waialua County Jail on Kauai.

The forced removal of these individuals began a nearly four-year odyssey to a series of camps in Hawaiʻi and on the continental United States.

They were put in these camps, not because they had been tried and found guilty of something, but because either they or their parents or ancestors were from Japan and, as such, they were deemed a “threat” to national security.

In all, between 1,200 and 1,400 local Japanese were interned, along with about 1,000 family members. The number of Japanese in Hawai‘i who were detained was small relative to the total Japanese population here, less than 1%.

By contrast, Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorized the mass exclusion and detention of all Japanese Americans living in the West Coast states, resulting in the eventual incarceration of 120,000 people.

The detainees were never formally charged and granted only token hearings. Many of the detainees’ sons served with distinction in the US armed forces, including the legendary 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team and Military Intelligence Service.

During the war, there was a Hawaii Defense Act, Order No. 5 that stated “all aliens were forbidden from possessing weapons, firearms, explosives short-wave radio receiving sets, transmitting sets, cameras, or maps of any United States military or naval installation.”

They could not travel by air, change residence or occupation or move without written permission from the provost marshal.

On December 8, 1941, the first detention camp was set up on Sand Island. Several factors made Sand Island a logical place for establishment of the first detention camp. Geographically, it was an island immediately adjacent to the city of Honolulu in the Honolulu Harbor.

The Territorial Quarantine Hospital had been located on Sand Island and it had housing, food prep and administrative facilities.

Within one week of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI detained 370 Japanese, 98 German and 14 Italians. Almost all of the Japanese detainees were men; of the European detainees, many were women. The European and Japanese internees were segregated.

The first POW of the war (Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, of the captured Japanese submarine that beached at Waimanalo) was also interned at Sand Island.

Each compound operated its own mess and maintained its own sanitary and internal administrations. The detainees supplied their own recreational activities, such as softball and volleyball games. Each compound had its own spokesman.

While most of the internees were residents of Oʻahu, there were Japanese detained on the Neighbor Islands.

On Kauai internees were crowded into the county jail. According to Gwen Allen (Hawaii War Years), the December 12, 1941 issue of the Kauai newspaper reported that “the men are building double decker bunks.” On the Big Island, detainees were interned at Kilauea Military Camp at Volcano.

Restrictions at each were different. On Kau‘i, after two days of war, a newspaper announcement invited families to call on detainees any day between 1 pm and 3 pm and they were allowed to take clean laundry and simple Japanese food.

On Maui, each detainee was given a questionnaire asking if they had any animals that needed feeding and other care, and if so, where can they be found. On the Big Island, there was no public visiting until February 14, 1942.

For some O‘ahu internees, they began their detention at the Immigration Station at Fort Armstrong and were then moved to Sand Island. Internees at Sand Island lived in tents until wooden barracks were built.

“Until books and other materials were allowed, the internees passed the time by smoothing sea shells for necklaces by rolling them on the concrete floors.”

In March 1942, Sand Island closed. Some detainees were sent to Honouliuli Internment camp.

Because arrests and detentions continued through the war, the community remained on edge, fearful as to who might be next. Japanese culture became equated with Japanese political affiliation, and Japanese language clothing and customs suddenly disappeared.

Though some detainees were released after a short imprisonment, the majority were detained for the duration of the war, with most eventually transferred to camps on the continental United States, for a period approaching four years.

Most eventually returned to Hawai‘i after the war.

In 2006, President Bush signed the Camp Preservation Bill (HR 1492), which authorized $38 million in funding for the preservation of former World War II confinement sites.

In part, the intent is that the Honouliuli site become a public historical park where the Hawai‘i internees story can be shared with future generations.

The fact that the internment did happen here in the Hawaiʻi are something to never forget.

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Honouliuli-

Honouliuli_Camp

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Sand Island-Internee tents shortly after the camp opened in December, 1941

Sand Island, 1946. What remains of the internment camp can be seen in the middle portion of the image.

Kilauea Military Camp, 1942

Hawai‘i internee group at Sante Fe camp, 1944

Ansel_Adams,_Baseball_game_at_Manzanar,_1943

Sand_Island-Camp-Layout

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July 9, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ikua Purdy

The gift of a few cattle, given to Kamehameha I by Captain George Vancouver in 1793, spawned a rich tradition of cowboy and ranch culture that is still here, today.

With a kapu against killing the cattle, by 1830, wild bullocks posed a serious and dangerous threat to humans. Spurred also by the growing business of reprovisioning visiting ships with fresh meat and vegetables, Kamehameha III and Kaʻahumanu saw the wisdom of bringing in experienced cowboys.

They hired Spanish-Mexican vaquero (cowboys) from California to hunt bullocks and train Hawaiians to rope and handle cattle. The cowboys spoke Spanish – “Espanol” which turned into “paniolo” according to one explanation of the term.

The Hawaiian cowboy, nicknamed “paniolo,” played an important role in the economic and cultural development of Hawaiʻi and helped to establish the islands as a major cattle exporter to California, the Americas and the Pacific Rim for over a century.

Some might not realize that Hawaiʻi’s working paniolo preceded the emergence of the American cowboy in the American West.

After winning the Revolutionary war (1781), American settlers started to pour into the “west;” by 1788, the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory was in Ohio.

In 1800, the western frontier extended to the Mississippi River, which bisects the continental United States north-to-south from just west of the Great Lakes to the delta near New Orleans.

Then, in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the nation.

The Battle of the Alamo was in 1836; later that year, Texas became independent, the Mexicans left, leaving their cattle behind. Texan farmers claimed the cattle and set up their own ranches.

It wasn’t until the 1840s that the wagon trains really started travelling to the far west. Then, with the US victory in the Mexican-American war and gold soon found in California, the rush to the West was on.

The cattle trade in the American West was at its peak from 1867 until the early-1880s.

And, when in cattle country, you can expect rodeos.

Headlines in Island and Wyoming newspapers in August of 1908 announced rodeo history.

Twelve thousand spectators, a huge number for those days, watched Ikua Purdy, Jack Low, and Archie Kaaua from Hawaiʻi carry off top awards at the world-famous Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo (the “granddaddy” of rodeo.).

Unlike today’s calf-roping, riders lassoed powerful, full-grown steers.

The Cheyenne paper reported that the performances of the dashing Hawaiians, in their vaquero-style clothing and flower-covered, “took the breath of the American cowboys.”

Under drizzling skies, Purdy won the World’s Steer Roping Championship—roping, throwing and tying the steer in 56 seconds. Kaaua and Low took third and sixth place.

They each accomplished these feats on borrowed horses.

Purdy worked at Parker Ranch prior traveling to Cheyenne, Wyoming; his victory demonstrated the exceptional skills of the paniolo to mainland cowboys who long regarded rodeo and roping as their own domain.

On arriving home, the men were met at dockside by thousands of cheering fans and also honored by parades and other festivities on Maui and Hawai‘i.

Waimea-born Purdy moved to Ulupalakua, Maui and resumed his work as a paniolo until his death in 1945. He did not return to the mainland to defend his title, in fact he never left Hawaii’s shores again. But his victory and legend live on in Hawaiʻi and the annals of rodeo history.

In 1999, Ikua Purdy was voted into the National Cowboy Museum, Rodeo Hall of Fame. That same year he was the first inductee to the Paniolo Hall of Fame established by the Oʻahu Cattlemen’s Association.

In 2003, a large bronze statue of Purdy roping a steer was placed in Waimea town on the Big Island, erected by the Paniolo Preservation Society. In October 2007, Purdy was inducted into the Cheyenne Frontier Days Hall of Fame.

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Ikua Purdy in Steer Roping Contest, Frontier Day, 1908

Ikua-Purdy

This undated photo, provided by the Paniolo Preservation Society shows Ikua Purdy, who became Hawaii’s most famous paniolo when he won the steer roping championship at the 1908 Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyo. A 16-foot-high statue honors his legacy at the Parker Ranch Shopping Center in Waimea. The legacy of Hawaii’s cowboys will be honored with an entire year of events during the Waiomina Centennial Celebration. (AP Photo/Paniolo Preservation Society)**AP PROVIDES ACCESS TO THIS PUBLICLY DISTRIBUTED HANDOUT PHOTO. THE COPYRIGHT IS OWNED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO SALES**

Ikua Purdy, Billy Spencer, and Archie Ka’au’a (hawaiianhistoricalsociety)

Archie Kaaua, Ikua Purdy and Billy Spencer (paniolopreservation-org)

Billy Walker, Jack Low and Ikua Purdy

Ikua_Purdy-Statue-Parker_Ranch_Shopping_Center

July 8, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Haiku Valley Communications … and Stairway

With World War II underway, the Navy recognized the need to be able to communicate across the Pacific.

A plan was proposed in the early spring of 1942; a group of radio experts determined a superpower radio station with pan-Pacific range might be built provided that the antenna could be raised high enough above the ground.

The greater the power to be radiated, the higher and larger must be the antenna system and the network of ground wires under it.

An Alexanderson Alternator was the sending source; it is a rotating machine invented in 1904 for use as a radio transmitter (as a technology, it was later replaced by vacuum tube transmitters.)

The Navy discovered that, rather than the conventional steel radio tower, the best way to accomplish that was by stringing copper cable between the peaks of two mountains with vertical drops.

The solution was to find a topographic feature that would act like the “unbuildable” tall tower. Using technology developed pre-World War I, they strategically positioned four Alexanderson Alternators; one was located in Haiku Valley.

Haiku Valley with its horseshoe shape and sheer side-walls filled the prescription perfectly, except for the logistical nightmare of constructing in an all but inaccessible area.

Then stepped forward (and up) two pioneers, Bill Adams and Louis Otto, who in 21-days, climbed the vertical cliffs in Haiku Valley, pounding in iron spikes into the face of the cliff (to be used as supports for a ladder and wooden staircase up the mountain.)

The Navy then installed a lift to haul up materials and strung cables across the valley. The Alexanderson Alternator radio system, transmitting Morse code across the Pacific, was operational in 3-months.

The equipment at Haiku provided reliable transoceanic radiotelegraph communication and was able to send signals to submarines during World War 2 – while they remained underwater – as far away as Tokyo Bay.

The Navy maintained the Haiku system from 1943 to 1970, when they reconfigured the facility as an OMEGA radio navigation system: it then became part of a network of worldwide OMEGA stations (two US stations (Haiku and North Dakota,) joined by Argentina, Norway, Liberia, France, Japan and Australia.)

When the eight station chain became operational, day to day operations at Haiku were managed by the United States Coast Guard and was used by several airlines flying long range routes over water, as well as by military forces. The new station could radiate transmissions at a power of 10,000-watts and over an 8,000-mile radius.

The OMEGA antenna system reaches 7,200-feet across Haiku Valley and is 1,250-feet above the ground. The anchors weigh over 180,000-pounds. Unlike the original construction for the Alexanderson Alternator (climbing the cliff,) a helicopter, helium balloons and hot air balloons were used in erecting the anchors and placing the wires.

OMEGA was the first truly-global radio navigation system and had the ability to achieve a four-mile accuracy when fixing a position for aircraft.

Using receiver units, it enabled ships and aircraft to determine their position by receiving very low frequency radio signals transmitted by a network of fixed terrestrial radio beacons. The Haiku OMEGA facility became operational around 1971 and was shut down in 1997.

Initially, the system was to be used for navigating nuclear bombers across the North Pole to Russia. Later, it was found useful for submarines and aircraft.

With the Global Positioning System (GPS) being declared fully operational, the use of OMEGA had dwindled to a point where continued operation was not economically justified; it ended on September 30, 1997.

Obviously, all of this ultimately leads us to a discussion on the Haiku Ladder, Haiku Stairs – the Stairway to Heaven.

The Stairway is a 3,922-step ladder/stairway ascending the summit of the Koʻolau mountain range. First built by the Navy in 1942 to access transmission facilities at the top of the ridge, the wooden stairs were replaced in 1955 with ones built of galvanized metal.

In 1997, after the OMEGA facility was abandoned and plans were underway to remove the Stairs, Mayor Harris requested that the Coast Guard transfer the Stairs to the City. The City then spent $875,000 to repair the Haiku Stairs.

The City had planned to reopen the Haiku Stairs in October 2002. But from 2002 to 2003, the popular hiking attraction became a point of contention with area residents.

They complained that as many as 200-hikers a day were trespassing through their property, parking on their streets, blocking mail delivery and trash pickup and arriving early in the morning, causing dogs to bark and waking residents.

Then, in 2005, Mayor Hannemann tried to transfer the Stairs to DLNR. I was DLNR Director then. While I believe the stairs are an excellent climbing (and vertigo) experience, I do not believe its ownership and operation is a state concern. (It is certainly not a natural trail, that’s the kind of stuff DLNR deals with.)

We recommended that a private entity step forward and manage the stairs – for the City or lease it from them. We believed that an operator could charge a fee for hikers to climb the stairs and use the revenue for operations and insurance.

The Stairs remain closed.

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Junction of Haiku Road and Kamehameha Highway.-(DavidJessup)-

Black arrow points out the 60 foot tower on the North cliff. The white arrow indicates the lower hoist A frame-(DavidJessup)-

Bomb proof transmitter building - view east-(DavidJessup)-

CCL house at the peak showing the upper hoist house-(DavidJessup)-

Cement headed for the top of the South cliff-(DavidJessup)-

View West. Cage for the South hoist.