Hawaii | Page 66 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

September 23, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Tap

In 1960, Taylor Allderdice (“Tap”) Pryor formed the Makapuʻu Oceanic Center when the Pacific Foundation for Marine Research secured a lease from the State for land near Makapuʻu Point.

His goals were to develop an institution for marine education, marine science and ocean industry. The facility featured an aquarium and park for visitors (Sea Life Park,) a marine research facility (now known as Oceanic Institute (OI)) and a pier and undersea test range for vessels and submersibles (Makai Undersea Test Range (now Makai Ocean Engineering.))

“We envision Hawaiʻi as an ocean-oriented community that can serve as a focal point through which the nation will enter the sea. Once we establish underwater industry – mining, oil and gas recovery – there will be a need for thousands of people.” (Pryor quoted in Life, October 27, 1967)

“Besides being earth’s last frontier, the sea contains most of the world’s remaining mineral resources, the largest existing protein resource and probably most of the oil and gas resources left to us. (Pryor quoted in Life, October 27, 1967)

Tap Pryor was born in 1931; his father Sam Pryor was a Pan American Vice President and friend and supporter of Charles Lindbergh. The Pryor’s had a home near Hāna where Lindbergh was a frequent guest; Lindbergh later purchased land next to the Pryor’s and built a home there, too.

Tap Pryor graduated from Cornell University in 1954, then he joined the US Marine Corps, serving in Parris Island, Quantico, Pensacola and MCAS Kāneʻohe, Hawaiʻi – he flew helicopters and fixed-wing. After being discharged as Captain in 1957, he attended graduate school at the University of Hawaiʻi.

Sea Life Park, the popular marine attraction near Makapuʻu Point in East Oʻahu, opened in 1964. It was one of the early pioneers in marine animal exhibitions.

On the continent, the first large oceanarium was developed as part of the film industry. Marine Studios opened in 1938, to film movies under water; it later became Marineland of Florida. (pbs)

The oceanarium-studio was integrated into the Florida tourism industry; in 1949, it began featuring short dolphin performances. In the early-1950s, Marineland spun off Marineland of the Pacific, in Palos Verdes, California. (pbs)

Then, the Sea Life Park facility brought the oceanarium experience to Hawaiʻi – combining a dolphin research facility with a tourist attraction.

“From Hawaiʻi’s Sea Life Park, located at Makapuʻu Point, comes a message teeming with life and youthful vitality. There, Taylor Alderdice Pryor, known as ‘Tap,’ and his wife, the former Karen Wylie, are staking their all on “the world’s largest exhibit of marine life” opening this month.”

“Now she has a full-time job at Sea Life Park as chief porpoise trainer. … She has a staff of three for the porpoises and reports with pride that so far they can ‘hula on their tails in the air.'” (The Miami News, January 1, 1964)

At Sea Life Park, Karen Pryor began using marker-based teaching and training techniques, called ‘clicker training.’ Clicker training (also known as magazine training) is a method for training animals that uses positive reinforcement in conjunction with a clicker, or small mechanical noisemaker, to mark the behavior being reinforced (the marine mammal trainers used whistles.)

Karen Pryor was one of the first people to work in a concentrated and applied way to discover what dolphins in captivity could be trained to do. Her writings and lectures taught a generation of marine mammal trainers and researchers around the United States. (pbs)

In 1965, Pryor was appointed Senator to the Hawaiʻi State Senate. In 1966 (at age 35,) he was named by President Johnson as one of eleven Commissioners to the President’s Commission of Marine Science, Marine Engineering and Marine Conservation.

Ultimately called the “Stratton Commission”, the group’s report ‘Our Nation and the Sea’ was published in January 1969. This group was responsible for the formation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1970.

As part of the Makai Undersea Test Range, in 1968, Pryor and others developed ‘Aegir,’ an undersea habitat, which accommodated six people and was successfully tested at 600-foot depth for two weeks at ambient pressure off Makapuʻu Point. (whaleresearch-org)

Pryor and others later developed Kumukahi, the first plexiglass submersible also tested at the Makai Range (1968-69.) During that time the Oceanic Institute acquired Star II.

They also invented an inexpensive, diver-operated pontoon-platform for launching and recovering submersibles beneath the surface so that they could operate in all weather with only a vessel-of-opportunity towing the submersible and its launcher to and from the dive sites. Because of that, Star II subsequently logged more undersea work time than any submersible anywhere. (whaleresearch-org)

In 1970, Pryor was named Salesman of the Year for the State of Hawaiʻi in recognition of his promotion of Hawaiʻi and it opportunities for marine science and engineering development.

Following his work on the Stratton Commission, he developed and operated the System Culture Seafood Plantation at Kahuku on Oʻahu, principally the production of table oysters, using his own patented on-land technique for culturing phytoplankton in 32 quarter-acre ponds to feed the oysters on stacked trays in raceways and recycling the water. (whaleresearch-org)

But, dreams faded and the organization was financially-overextended in efforts to develop undersea mining and deep-sea fish farming and underwent bankruptcy reorganization.

According to a June 25, 1972 The Honolulu Advertiser story, The “TAP” Pryor Story: From Dreams to Debts, Pryor had briefly studied zoology at UH but had no other science credentials.

Nevertheless, he soon became a spokesman for oceanography and was even named to the prestigious Stratton Commission and to the state of Hawaiʻi commission on ocean resources. In 1970, Pryor was awarded the Neptune Award of the American Oceanic Organization – an award that was mischaracterized as “the highest honor in oceanography.” (SOEST)

As part of the bankruptcy reorganization in 1972, Sea Life Park, Makai Pier and Test Range, and Oceanic Institute were spun off into separate entities.

On Monday 30 April 1973 an editorial in The Honolulu Advertiser entitled “Our oceanographic dream” asked the rhetorical question, “Was the great dream of Hawaiʻi as a center for oceanographic research just that – a dream?” (SOEST)

Oceanic Institute is a not-for-profit research and development organization dedicated to marine aquaculture, biotechnology, and coastal resource management. Their mission is to develop and transfer economically responsible technologies to increase aquatic food production while promoting the sustainable use of ocean resources. OI works with community, industry, government and academic partners, and non-governmental organizations to benefit the state, the nation, and the world. (CTSA)

Later, in 1978, Oceanic Institute formed a cooperative agreement with Tufts University in Massachusetts for teaching and research in marine science, aquaculture, marine biology, marine medicine, and marine nutrition. Later (2003,) the OI facility became associated with Hawaiʻi Pacific University (HPU.)

September 22, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mauka-Ewa Corner of Richards and Hotel Streets

I wasn’t sure what to call this post. It includes a little bit of history and is essentially a discussion of the evolution of the site and building that now houses the Hawai‘i State Art Museum.

The uses evolved from scattered homes to the Hawaiian Hotel to the Armed Forces YMCA to Hemmeter Corporation headquarters to No. 1 Capitol District Building, and now to the Hawai‘i State Art Museum and State offices.

Here’s a little bit of history.

Back in the mid-1800s, the growth of steamship travel between Hawai‘i and the West Coast of the United States, Australia and New Zealand caused a large increase in the number of visitors to the islands.

The arrival and departure of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain,) the Duke of Edinburgh and others included envoys, politicians, merchants and opportunists, created the need of good hotel accommodations to lodge similar visitors.

The Hawaiian Hotel was proposed in 1865, but not laid down until 1871. The Hotel was located on the Mauka-Ewa corner of Hotel Street and Richards Street and was formally opened by a ball on February 29, 1872.

The Hawaiian Hotel was later called the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, because King Kamehameha V felt adding “Royal” to the name would give it regal feel.

Therefore, first “Royal Hawaiian Hotel” was not in Waikīkī; rather, it was in downtown Honolulu (the later one, in Waikīkī, opened over fifty years later, in 1928.)

In 1879, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel was surrounded by dwellings, including several thatched-roof hale, but the hotel expanded over the next twenty years and replaced most of the residences.

Reportedly, Kalākaua kept a suite there; the Paradise of the Pacific noted it was “one of the coolest buildings in the city.” (I’m not sure that this is the same “cool” that I refer to as “waaay cool.”)

By 1900, the last dwellings and a doctor’s office were located on the corner of Beretania and Richards Streets. These were all gone by 1914.

In November 1917, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel was purchased by a group of local businessmen and became the official headquarters of the Armed Services YMCA in Hawai‘i.

In 1926, the hotel was demolished and the present building was constructed. The Army and Navy YMCA building was erected on the site of the former Royal Hawaiian Hotel in 1927.

Through the middle of the century, the downtown “Y” was a popular destination for service men from all branches of the military.

By the mid-1970s, an increasing number of junior enlisted personnel were married with children.

The Armed Services YMCA responded to the changing needs of the military by opening family centers at Aliamanu Military Reservation, Iroquois Point Housing, Marine Corps Base Hawaii-Kaneohe, Wheeler/Schofield and Tripler Army Medical Center.

The building was rehabilitated in the late-1980s by Hemmeter Corporation, when it was renamed No. 1 Capitol District Building.

This remodeled office complex became the Hemmeter Corporation Building. After completion in 1988, the historic building served as Hemmeter Headquarters for several years.

Hemmeter Design Group earned national awards for the redevelopment of the historic YMCA building in downtown Honolulu.

Today, the Hawai’i State Art Museum (managed by the Hawai’i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts) and several State offices are housed in the historic Spanish-Mission style building.

The Hawai‘i State Art Museum opened in the fall of 2002. The museum is located on the second floor of the No. 1 Capitol District Building.

The museum houses three galleries featuring (and serves as the principal venue for) artworks from the Art in Public Places Collection.

September 21, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Puerto Ricans

The first inhabitants of Puerto Rico were the Taino, hunter-gatherers who lived in small villages led by a cacique, or chief. Despite their limited knowledge of agriculture, they grow pineapples, cassava, and sweet potatoes and supplement their diet with seafood. They called the island Boriken. (PBS)

On his second voyage to the Indies, Christopher Columbus arrived on November 19, 1493 on the island and claimed it for Spain, renaming it San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist.)

Juan Ponce de León, who had accompanied Columbus and worked to colonize nearby Hispaniola, was given permission by Queen Isabella to explore the island. On a well-protected bay on the north coast, he founds Caparra, where the island’s first mining and farming begins. (PBS)

Puerto Rico chasf three geological formations: a system of deeply ribbed mountains; lower hills and playa plains, consisting of alluvial soil and old estuaries.

It is roughly estimated that nine-tenths of the Island is mountainous and the remaining tenth is of the foothill and playa character. (Alvrez; Pacific Commercial Advertiser, June 25, 1901)

The brief Spanish-American War ended with the Treaty of Paris (December 10, 1898) that resulted in Spain relinquishing its holdings in the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico.

The island was governed by a US military governor from October 1898 until May 1900; then it became an “organized but unincorporated” territory of the US. (President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status)

On August 7 and 8, 1899, the San Ciriaco hurricane swept through Puerto Rico with winds up to 100-miles per hour. Twenty-eight days of torrential rain caused approximately thirty-four hundred fatalities, massive flooding, and at least $7-million dollars in agricultural damage. (Poblete)

Tens of thousands of people lost their homes and means of livelihood. The 1899 coffee crop destroyed; it would take at least 5-years before coffee would be profitable again. (Poblete)

Besides no jobs, no homes and no education (as there was no system of compulsory public education,) the poor also had no money. (Souza)

At the same time, the booming Hawaiʻi sugar industry was looking for more workers. Puerto Ricans looked for alternatives and were drawn to another US territory, Hawaiʻi, and its sugar plantations.

Workers and their families left Puerto Rico with hopes that life in the Pacific Islands would be less bleak and provide more opportunity for stability and success.

The first group, that included 114 men, women and children, left San Juan by steamboat on November 22, 1900. The journey took them by ship to New Orleans, by train across the land to San Francisco. About fifty refused to continue their voyage to Hawaiʻi and founded the San Francisco Puerto Rican community. (Chapin; HHS)

The rest (families, young single men and women, and some underage boys who left without parents’ permission) were forced to board the steamship Rio de Janeiro and endured a harrowing trip to Hawaiʻi, arriving on December 24, 1900. (Vélez)

Between 1900 and 1901, eleven expeditions of men, women and children were recruited by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA) to work alongside Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Portuguese and Italians in the pineapple and sugar fields.

Contractual accords stipulated incentives – credit for transportation expenses, the availability of public education, opportunities to worship in Catholic Churches, decent wages and standard living accommodations. (Korrol, Center for Puerto Rican Studies) Eventually 5,100 settled on plantations in the Islands. (Chapin; HHS)

What did the Puerto Ricans find when they came to Hawaii? The early immigrant’s answer was usually, “trabajo y tristeza”—work and sorrow. (Souza)

Pay was $15.00 monthly for the men, 40¢ a day for the women, 50¢ a day for the boys, and 35¢ a day for the girls (for ten hours’ daily labor in the fields and twelve hours in the mills.) Later, for the men, pay included a bonus, usually 50¢ per week if they worked a full 26-day month. (Souza)

Unrest among the worker contingents surfaced almost immediately as reports describing the migrants’ horrendous ordeals appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times and newspapers in Puerto Rico.

Desertion was not uncommon, and tales of individuals who refused to board Hawaiʻi-bound vessels account for the emergence of the earliest Puerto Rican settlements in California. (Korrol, Center for Puerto Rican Studies)

Even in 1921, when several volatile years of labor organizing among Filipinos led the HSPA to negotiate with the Puerto Rican government to resume labor recruitment, the promises of increased wages, free medical care, and fair housing and work conditions again proved to be hollow for Puerto Rican laborers. (Gonzales)

Despite the fact that a small contingent of contracted workers was brought into Hawaii as late as 1926, labor recruitment virtually ended in the first decade of the century. (Korrol, Center for Puerto Rican Studies)

Puerto_Ricans_to_Hawaii-Souza

Caravalho Juan Maria Robello Caravalho Felicita, early 1920s.

Threats-Force-Puerto_Ricans_to_Hawaii-SFO_Examiner-Dec_15,_1900-Souza

Sugar_Cane-Workers-Puerto_Ricans-Souza

Puerto Rican Landing Monument – Honoipu-Betancourt

General_view_of_harbor_at_San_Juan,_Porto_Rico_looking_South to San Juan Bay, 1927

The results of Hurricane San Ciriaco over the island of Puerto Rico-LOC

San-Juan-Peurto-Rico

puerto-rico

Puerto_Rico_municipalities

puerto_rico

Path of Hurricane San Ciriaco over the island of Puerto Rico-LOC

Caribbean-Map

September 20, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Saint Louis School

On June 17, 1839, King Kamehameha III issued the Edict of Toleration permitting religious freedom for Catholics in the same way as it had been granted to the Protestants.

In 1841, Father Louis Maigret, the Vicar delegate, divided Oʻahu into missionary districts. Father Martial Jan was assigned to supervise the Koʻolau district. By the early 1850s, the windward coast of Oʻahu was dotted with chapels.

The Sacred Hearts Father’s College of Ahuimanu was founded on the Windward side of Oʻahu in 1846 by the Catholic Mission under the direction of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

One of its students, Damien (born as Jozef de Veuster,) arrived in Hawaiʻi on March 9, 1864, at the time a 24-year-old choirboy. Determined to become a priest, he had the remainder of his schooling the College of Ahuimanu.

On May 21, Damien was ordained a priest at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu; he spent the rest of his life in Hawaiʻi. In 2009, Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI.

The College of Ahuimanu flourished; as reported by the Bishop in 1865, “The college and the schools are doing well. But as the number of pupils is continually on the increase, it has become necessary to enlarge the college. First we have added a story and a top floor with an attic; then we have been obliged to construct a new building. And yet we are lacking room.”

In 1881, the school moved to its second location in former Rev. Richard Armstrong’s home, ”Stonehouse” (named after the residence of Admiral Richard Thomas in England,) on 91 Beretania Street adjoining Washington Place. At that time, the name “College of St. Louis” was given to the institution in honor of Bishop Louis Maigret’s patron Saint, Louis IX.

Pacific Commercial Advertiser noted that “The College of St. Louis, an Hawaiian Commercial and Business Academy, offering Classical, Scientific and Commercial courses,” also offered in its curriculum courses in Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. An evening session offered adults “theoretical and, practical knowledge of commercial and business transactions.” (Soong)

Growing enrollment soon required the Mission Fathers to relocate the school, again; this time, they found a site on the banks of Nuʻuanu Stream. The College at Aʻala was placed under the direction of five pioneer Brothers of Mary who arrived from Dayton, Ohio in 1883.

St Louis continued to be affiliated with the Society of Mary, a religious order of brothers and priests called Marianists. The Society was founded by Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, a priest who survived the anti-clerical persecution during the French Revolution.

The Nuʻuanu Stream front campus was accessed via “College Walk” street; it’s now a linear mall/park fronting the stream (however, no school or college is there anymore.)

In the years following, it became evident that the elementary and high school departments were in need of still larger quarters. Encouraged by parents and alumni, the Marianists laid plans for a greater St. Louis College.

In 1923, they purchased 205 acres at Kalaepōhaku in Kaimuki; classes began there in 1928.

December 8, 1941 the US Government commandeered the campus for the use of the 147th General Hospital. Elementary students attended classes at Saint Patrick School and high school classes co-located at McKinley High School.

Sharing a campus by the high schools led to a fierce rivalry. To ease some of the tension, reportedly, Saint Louis football coach (later Honolulu Mayor) Neal Blaisdell created the “poi pounder trophy,” to go to the winner of the annual Saint Louis/McKinley football game (this continued from 1942 to 1969.)

After sixty-seven-years of providing education at grade levels one through twelve, the elementary and intermediate grades were withdrawn one-grade-a-year, beginning in 1950.

In 1955, the Marianists established Chaminade College on the east end of the Kalaepōhaku campus (it was initially named the Saint Louis Junior College; with it, Saint Louis College was renamed to Saint Louis High School.)

In 1957, Saint Louis Junior College became co-educational and a four-year college and the school was renamed to Chaminade College of Honolulu (named after the Society of Mary (Marianists) founder.)

St. Louis’ high school classes continued on campus until 1979, when the school’s Board of Trustees voted to re-incorporate intermediate grades seven and eight, beginning in fall, 1980. A sixth grade was added and the intermediate grades were then converted to a middle school beginning with the fall semester of 1990.

Today, Saint Louis is an all-boys private Catholic school, grades six through twelve; they note it is a school “Where Boys Who Want to Change the World Become the Men Who Do.”

September 19, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kīpahulu

The south-eastern section of the island of Maui, comprising the districts of Hāna, Kīpahulu, Kaupo and Kahikinui, was at one time a Royal Center and central point of kingly and priestly power.

This section of the island was prominent in the reign of Kekaulike, and has Maui’s largest heiau (Piʻilanihale Heiau – near Hāna.) Others also seated their power here.

Long before the first Europeans arrived on Maui, Kīpahulu was prized by the Hawaiian aliʻi for its fertile land and abundant ocean.

The first written description of Kīpahulu was made by La Pérouse in 1786 while sailing along the southeast coast of Maui in search of a place to drop anchor:

“I coasted along its shore at a distance of a league (three miles) …. The aspect of the island of Mowee was delightful. We beheld water falling in cascades from the mountains, and running in streams to the sea, after having watered the habitations of the natives, which are so numerous that a space of three or four leagues (9 – 12 miles, about the distance from Hāna to Kaupō) may be taken for a single village.” (Bushnell)

“But all the huts are on the seacoast, and the mountains are so near, that the habitable part of the island appeared to be less than half a league in depth. The trees which crowned the mountains, and the verdure of the banana plants that surrounded the habitations, produced inexpressible charms to our senses …”

“… but the sea beat upon the coast with the utmost violence, and kept us in the situation of Tantalus, desiring and devouring with our eyes what it was impossible for us to attain … After passing Kaupō no more waterfalls are seen, and villages are fewer.” (Bushnell)

With the development of the whaling industry on the island in 1880s Kīpahulu population started to decline as people moved to main whaling ports, such as Lāhainā.

In the early-1900s, one of the regular ports of call for the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company was Kīpahulu. Steamships provided passenger service around Maui and between the islands.

Kīpahulu Landing also provided a way for growers and ranchers to ship their goods to markets. Today the land where Kīpahulu Landing existed is private but protected with a conservation easement, overseen by the Maui Coastal Land Trust (now part of the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust.)

A famous Kīpahulu resident was Charles Lindbergh. He was the first to make a solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Other pilots had crossed the Atlantic before him; but Lindbergh was the first person to do it alone nonstop.

“Early in the morning on May 20, 1927 Charles Lindbergh took off in The Spirit of St. Louis from Roosevelt Field near New York City. Flying northeast along the coast, he was sighted later in the day flying over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.”

“From St. Johns, Newfoundland, he headed out over the Atlantic, using only a magnetic compass, his airspeed indicator, and luck to navigate toward Ireland.” (New York Times, May 21, 1927)

“On the evening of May 21, he crossed the coast of France, followed the Seine River to Paris and touched down at Le Bourget Field at 10:22 pm. … A frenzied crowd of more than 100,000 people gathered at Le Bourget Field to greet him. ” (New York Times, May 21, 1927)

Lindbergh was introduced to Maui by his friend Sam Pryor, a Pan American Vice President and supporter of his flight across the Atlantic. Having first visited Pryor’s home near Hana, Lindberg later acquired land next to him and built his house.

Lindbergh died of cancer on Aug. 26, 1974, in his home on Maui. He was buried on the grounds of the Palapala Hoʻomau Church. (Pryor died in 1985 and is buried there, too – as well as Sam’s six gibbons.)

Kīpahulu’s Palapala Hoʻomau Church started construction in 1857 and was completed in 1862; it was restored in 1965 (with a lot of help from Lindberg and Pryor.)

In January 2012, the Palapala Hoʻomau Preservation Society was created to care for the Church. For many years, an endowment administered by the Hawai‘i Conference Foundation, set up by the Lindbergh and Pryor families, provided funds for maintenance and upkeep of the property. (hcucc)

In recent years, the need for restoration work on the church has gone beyond what the endowment fund can provide. Although there is no regular worshipping community at Palapala Hoʻomau, the historical significance of the church and graveyard, as well as the number of visitors who come to the property each year, led the Hawai‘i Conference Foundation to find a solution. (hcucc)

Mike Love of the Beach Boys later bought the Lindberg home, a 5-acre estate, down a twisting, scenic road a few miles from Hāna. Love also purchased the Pryor’s 14-acre adjacent site and house. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1989)