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May 29, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lānai Ranch

Lānai’s formal ranching period ran from approximately 1854 to 1951 – longer than the cultivation of pineapple on the island. The ranch headquarters, situated about one mile away from what is now the city was at a place known as Kō‘ele.

Prior to 1923 and the arrival of James Dole, the Kō‘ele headquarters of the Lānai Ranch was the closest thing to a town in the uplands of Lānai. The only other historic “city” or village was situated on the windward shore of Lānai, at Keomuku – which had originally been built as the center of operations for the Maunalei Sugar Company (1898 to 1901). (Kepa Maly)

Walter Murray Gibson and other followers of the Mormon Church started a settlement on land they had purchased. Shortly thereafter, Gibson was excommunicated for allegedly misusing church funds; the settlement failed and the Mormons left the island.

Gibson remained and consolidated the 26,000 acres of land he controlled to form Lānai Sheep Ranch, headquartered in Palawai. By 1867, Gibson’s ranch consisted of 10,000 sheep and 18,000 goats.

By 1875, despite protests by Lānai; residents, Gibson controlled 90 percent of Lānai; lands either in fee simple or long-term leases, for ranching and farming operations. After Gibson’s death in 1888, the ranch was turned over to his daughter and son-in-law, Talula and Frederick Hayselden.

The ranch, headquartered in Kō‘ele, had grown to number 40,000 sheep, 3,000 Angora goats, 600 horses and 200 head of cattle. Lands making up Lānai Ranch included the former Gibson lands, government-owned land, and some ahupua‘as owned by Honolulu financier WG Irwin.

Despite attempts to increase the ranch’s efficiency and profitability, the Hayseldens lost money. Therefore, in 1898, the Hayseldens established Maunalei Sugar Company.  Plagued by financial problems, Hayselden closed the plantation in 1901.

The Gibson estate went into receivership, with financiers WH Pain and Paul Neuman assuming two-thirds of the debt and the remaining land and assets. Charles and Louisa Gay, of the wealthy Gay and Robinson family of Kauai and Ni‘ihau, purchased the properties held by Pain and Neuman in 1902.

By 1907, Gay owned virtually the entire island.  The Gay family moved to Lānai in late 1902. The family business is primarily ranching, but with a transition from sheep to cattle.

Between 1902 and 1910, the years of his tenure as landowner and manager, Gay brought up plantation homes for ranch hands from Keomuku to Kō‘ele, laid pipelines, dug reservoirs and wells, erected windmills and fences, installed a water-pumping system in Maunalei Gulch, and began experimental farming.

Gay, who lived in the ranch manager’s home in Ko’ele, also maintained a residence near the beach at Keomuku. He used some of the defunct sugar company’s facilities at Keomuku – such as the brackish-water wells, windmills, and the Kahalepalaoa Landing – to maintain some ranch operations manned by a few employees.

Gay also built a school in Palawai for his own children and that of ranch employees, and a church in Keomuku for use by his family and nearby residents.  Although Gay achieved some measure of success after his improvements, he had difficulty turning a profit. He subsequently sold all but 600 acres of his lands in 1910 to a hui of businessmen.

William G Irwin (and his wife), Robert W Shingle and Cecil Brown formed the “Lānai Ranch Company,” which later became the “Lānai Company.”  At the time of this sale, the ranch consisted of 22,500 sheep, 250 head of cattle, and 150 horses.

Gay remained on Lānai and, on his 600 acres, farmed corn, watermelons, pineapples and other crops, raised pigs, and built a home in Lalakoa, an area adjacent to present-day Lānai City. He also continued to use his Keomuku home.

In 1911, Lānai Ranch Company hired New Zealander George Munro as ranch manager. Munro, who previously worked at Molokai Ranch, found that because there had been little subdividing of pastureland, the sheep were roaming the island almost at will and the goats had become wild.

Munro, who had a knowledge of and interest in botany, planted hundreds of Norfolk Island pine trees throughout the island to catch fog drip to increase the ground water supply. Also during this time, Lānai Ranch Company began shifting its emphasis from sheep to cattle in order to supply a growing market for beef.

In 1917, Lānai Ranch Company sold the island to Frank and Harry Baldwin of Maui, who continue the cattle ranching operation under the title of “Lānai Ranch.”

Munro, who was to stay on as ranch manager until 1935, continued the shift from sheep to cattle, and reduced the goat population. With the improved water supply, the emphasis on cattle, and the decimation of goats which destroyed grazing lands, Lānai Ranch began making a profit.

In 1922, despite this relative prosperity, the Baldwins sold the island to James D Dole of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company. This began the large-scale pineapple cultivation on Lānai which was to permanently alter the island’s landscape and social fabric while at the same time signaling the decline of Lānai Ranch as the island’s dominant commercial activity.

James Dole and associates planned and started the construction of Lānai City, Kaumālapa‘u Harbor (to ship pineapples and supplies), the plantation fields, and infrastructure needed for development of the plantation.

​Dole engaged David Root, James Munro, Tokumatsu Murayama, Hawaiian Dredging and others to develop the plantation.  Former pasturelands were cleared and rows upon rows of pineapple were planted.  The first buildings in Lānai City were under construction in 1923.

​During the decade following its purchase, Hawaiian Pine carefully implemented plans to transform Lānai into a pineapple plantation and ultimately made Lānai the world’s largest pineapple plantation.

As pineapple growing and harvesting began in earnest, the first crop was harvested and shipped in 1926 – Munro reduced the cattle herd and turned over ranch acreage to Hawaiian Pineapple Company. By 1927, of Lānai’s 89,600 acres, pineapple operations accounted for 40,000 acres, Lānai Ranch occupied 44,000 acres, and 5,000 acres were taken up by forest reserve.

In 1935, George Munro, Lānai Ranch manager since 1911, retired. He advised that pineapple, not cattle, be given primary consideration on Lānai, and that the ranch be continued only as long as pineapple-growing was not jeopardized.

The ranch continued to decline in the 1940s. By 1950, there were only a few cowboys to herd up the remaining cattle on the island. The ranch officially closed in 1951.

Castle & Cooke, Inc., which in 1961 acquired 100 percent direct ownership of Hawaiian Pineapple Company (in 1985, David H Murdock purchased Castle & Cooke – which includes much of the island of Lānai). In 1987. construction of the two luxury hotels on Lānai started.

In 1992, the final harvest of pineapple on Lānai took place in October. On November 14. 1992, a “Pau Hana” (“end of work”) gathering was held in Dole Park to commemorate the close of the pineapple era on Lānai.

In 2012, Larry Ellison purchased the island of Lānai – approximately 97 percent of the land on island – and engaged in building a sustainable community through the holding company, Pūlama Lānai.  (Lots of information here is from UH Center for Oral History and Lānai Culture & Heritage Center.)

© 2025 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: Economy, General, Place Names, Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Lanai, George Munro, James Dole, Charles Gay, Baldwin, Lanai Ranch

February 11, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaumālapaʻu

The total land area of Lānai is 89,305 acres, divided into 13 ahupua‘a (traditional land divisions.)  In the traditional system, respective konohiki served as land managers over each. These konohiki were subject to control by the ruling chiefs.

At the time of the Great Māhele (1848,) lands on Lānai were divided between lands claimed by King Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli) (40,665 acres,) which were known as the Crown Lands, and the lands to be claimed by the chiefs and people (48,640 acres,) which were called the Government Lands.

By 1907, more than half the island of Lānai was in the hands of native Hawaiians. Just 14 years later, in 1921, only 208.25 acres of land remained in native Hawaiian ownership. By 1875 Walter Gibson had control, either through lease or direct ownership, of nine‐tenths of Lānai’s lands. (Lānai Community Plan)

When James Dole bought Lānai, ranching was a thriving business under the control of George Munro. Shortly after the purchase, Dole got Munro working at removing cattle from potential pineapple lands. As soon as cattle were fattened they were sold. Ranching operations became a secondary priority to pineapple development.

During 1923, the company embarked on making major improvements to the island of Lānai.  At first, Dole wanted to name the town Pine City, but the post office department objected because there were too many “pine” post offices in the mainland United States.  So the plantation town was called Lānai City.

Dole hired Mr. Root, an engineer, to lay out and plan the town. Root arrived at Mānele Bay to begin his work. He designed the central park with a symmetrical grid of residential streets, which remains the configuration of Lānai City today.” (Lānai Community Plan)

Between 1922 and 1992, pineapple plantation operations provided the people of Lānai with a way of life.  James Doles’ Hawaiian Pineapple Company evolved and many of the innovations in cultivation, equipment design, harvesting, irrigation and labor relations developed on the Lānai plantation, and came to be used around the world. (Lānai Culture & Heritage Center)

Mānele Bay was the main port of entry for Lānai; its primary purpose was to ship pineapple off the island. On the eastern side of the island, remnants of Halepalaoa Landing can be seen; this was used primarily to ship cattle. It’s also reported that in the late 1800s, a steamer landing was located on the western shore of Lānai Island and served as a docking grounds.

A new harbor was needed.  In 1923 to 1926, Kaumālapaʻu Bay, a natural, sheltered cove on the southwest side of Lānai, was developed into the main shipping harbor from which pineapple and all major supplies for Lānai were shipped and received.

“… we learned that the breakwater is composed of 116,000-tons of rock blasted from the cliffs and dropped into the water.  The Kaumalapau harbor entrance is 65-feet deep, and the minimum depth of the harbor is 27-feet.  The wharf is 400-feet long and the boat landing is 80-feet in length.”  (Lanai “The Pineapple Kingdom, 1926)

Bins filled with pineapple were unloaded from the trucks (steam cranes were still used through the 1960s), and placed on the barges for shipping to the cannery at Iwilei, Honolulu, Oʻahu. Tug boats were used to haul the barges – empty bins and supplies to Lānai, and filled pineapple bins to the cannery.

Because of the demands of work at Kaumālapaʻu, Lānai’s “second city” was developed, and known as “Harbor Camp.” The Harbor Camp included around 20 homes and support buildings, and sat perched on the cliffs above Kaumālapaʻu Bay.  (Lānai Culture & Heritage Center)

Surmising from the vast archaeological features on the cliffs above Kaumālapaʻu Gulch, Kaumālapaʻu Harbor was probably a very important settlement (seasonal and/or permanent) for native Hawaiians. (Social Research Pacific)

Access to fishing, whether by boat or off the shoreline, is easily attained at Kaumālapaʻu.  One of the sites immediately mauka of the harbor is called “Fisherman’s Trail.” In the 1862 letter requesting settlement and use of Lānai, even Gibson indicated the importance of fishing as the primary source of subsistence for the island’s inhabitants.

The village of Kaunolu, just to the south of Kaumālapaʻu was known as a “fishing village”. Given its proximity to Kaumālapaʻu, it is highly likely that neighboring Kaumālapaʻu also offered good fishing grounds to Hawaiians. The Kaumālapaʻu Trail extends from Lānai City down to Kaumālapaʻu.   (Social Research Pacific)

In the Māhele, the ahupuaʻa of Kamoku and Kalulu (which adjoin the existing Kaumālapaʻu Harbor) were retained by the King (Kamehameha III), though the ‘ili of Kaumālapaʻu 1 & 2 were given by the King to the Government.

The Kaumālapaʻu Harbor breakwater was in disrepair for many years following several hurricanes and seasonal storms.  Completed in 2007, 40,000-tons of new stone was added to the reshaped breakwater, 800 concrete Core-Locs (each weighing 35 tons) were put in place and a 5-foot- thick concrete cap was cast on top of the breakwater to complete the project.  (Traylor)

Today, as in the early 1920s, Kaumālapaʻu Harbor is the main commercial seaport and Lānai’s lifeline to the outside world, with Young Brothers’ barge and other commercial activity in and out of Lānai.

© 2025 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Place Names, Prominent People, Economy Tagged With: George Munro, James Dole, Kaumalapau, Pineapple, Manele, Hawaii, Lanai, Walter Murray Gibson, Halepalaoa, Kaunolu Village, Hawaiian Pineapple Company

August 17, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Georgia O’Keeffe

“The pineapple is quite beautiful as it grows. When it is little and you look down into it as I did into the corn when I painted it – it is very handsome – and later when it is big and has not turned ripe it is a wonderful green and purple sort of color – very beautiful among its foliage …” (Georgia O’Keeffe; Saville)

James Drummond Dole founded Hawaiian Pineapple Company in 1901. Within a few years pineapple production at Wahiawa had increased that Dole planned a cannery at Iwilei, near the shipping facilities of Honolulu Harbor.

Later (1922,) Dole bought the Island of Lānaʻi and transformed it into the largest pineapple plantation in the world, with 20,000 farmed acres and a planned plantation village to house more than a thousand workers and their families.

The ad agency for Dole was looking for something special for a national magazine advertising campaign; in exchange for an all-expense-paid trip, they asked Georgia O’Keeffe to submit two paintings from Hawai‘i. She was also free to paint for herself.

The second of seven children of Wisconsin dairy farmers, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) knew by age ten that she wanted to become an artist. In 1908, she won a prize for a still-life oil painting. After a short hiatus, she painted in earnest and in 1917 held her first solo show (organized by Alfred Stieglitz, her future husband.)

O’Keeffe became one of the greatest female artists of the 20th century. Best known for her still-life paintings, she painted natural settings at their most basic: large-scale flowers, bones and landscapes.

On January 30, 1939, O’Keeffe and Stieglitz headed to New York’s Grand Central Station to start the trip. Nine days later, she stepped off the Lurline, was draped with ʻilima and crown flower lei and found herself in the Islands. (Stelle)

She spent her first month in Hawai‘i on O‘ahu. After 2-weeks, she finally saw a pineapple field; it was “all sharp and silvery stretching for miles off to the beautiful irregular mountains. … I was astonished – it was so beautiful.” (O’Keeffe; Steele)

On March 10, she moved to Maui and ended up in Hāna. “This seems to be the best yet. The trip over by plane was fine – I will be off in the far away some where – but every one says is the good place. The flying was very good and I am fine – 9 in the morning on a new island seems good – Wish you could see it.” (Postcard, O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 10, 1939; Saville)

She was hosted by the Willis Jennings family (he was manager of the Hāna sugar plantation;) “You would laugh to see where I am now – almost at the end of the road on Maui – a little sugar plantation town – at the managers house – the only white family for 60 miles and it is different as the man in Honolulu told me it would be – The mans wife is not at home but his daughter is”. (Letter, O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 12, 1939; Saville)

Twelve-year-old Patricia Jennings became her companion and guide for the next ten days. “The road to Hāna was there, but not paved all the way. We always took a picnic lunch because you never knew how long it would take.” (Patricia Jennings; Tarleton)

O’Keeffe would drive the family car to favorite island sites with Patricia, then send the girl off to amuse herself while she painted. The one exception was when a sudden ‘Īao Valley shower made them retreat to the car. Patricia watched, without speaking, enthralled by the brush in her hand, the effortless glide of oil paints onto canvas. (Tarleton)

“It is hard to tell about the islands—the people have a kind of gentleness that isn’t usual on the mainland. I feel that my tempo must definitely change to put down anything of what is here—I don’t know whether I can or not—but it is certainly a different world—and I am glad I came.” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 12, 1939; Saville)

From Hāna she spent a few days in Wailuku, then, headed to Volcano on the Big Island. “We drove about hundred and 75 miles—part of it through as tropical woods as I have seen—about a third of it along the sea—then up to the top of the volcano where they left me at the (Volcano House) hotel – It was a good day” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 31, 1939; Saville)

“I didn’t care for that place. I don’t like steam coming out of the earth and holes in the road where the earth has opened up and not closed properly – and great bumps about a foot high where the pavement just rose up and didn’t go down.” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, March 31, 1939; Saville) She soon left the Volcano area and headed to the Kona Inn.

“I guess we did this area of the island pretty thoroughly – First we watched fishermen bringing in their net of fish in a little bay -what beautiful fish – every color and many queer shapes – very very beautiful color – the men swim and dive about – have quite a time gathering their net in.” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, April 3, 1939; Saville)

“All day I was driving over here (Hilo) from Kona Inn and it was a wonderful day – Warm and lovely and blue this morning – the loveliest part the Parker Ranch – quite like (New Mexico) but it is high and the lower part of the island – shore line and sea floating off in space like a map far below with no edge where it went off into the sky – sky became water and water became sky – and all so delicate and lovely – It was as beautiful as anything I’ve ever seen.” (O’Keeffe to Stieglitz, April 9, 1939; Saville)

She returned briefly to O‘ahu and sailed for California on the Matsonia on April 14. More than six months after her arrival in Hawaiʻi, O’Keeffe had produced 20-paintings, not one included a pineapple and she subsequently “submitted depictions of a papaya tree and the spiky blossom of a lobster’s claw heliconia” for the Dole ads.

Some creative ad copy featuring the heliconia noted, “Hospitable Hawaiʻi cannot send you its abundance of flowers or its sunshine. But it sends you something reminiscent of both – golden fragrant Dole Pineapple Juice”;– it ran nationally in Vogue and the Saturday Evening Post. (Yagi)

For the other ad, “(t)actful Art Director Charles Coiner,” as Time Magazine reported in 1940, “spouted to Painter O’Keeffe about the beauty of pineapples in bud, urg(ing) her to give the pineapple a break. He phoned Honolulu, had a budding plant put aboard the Clipper.”

“Thirty-six hours later the plant was delivered to the O’Keeffe studio in Manhattan. ‘It’s beautiful, I never knew that,’ exclaimed Artist O’Keeffe… She promptly painted it, and Dole got a pineapple picture after all.” (Yagi)

A year after her Hawaiʻi trip, in 1940, she bought a house at Ghost Ranch, in New Mexico. After Stieglitz died in 1946, she settled his estate and moved to New Mexico permanently. There in the wilderness and isolation she continued to paint, and she remained in New Mexico until her death at the age of 98. (Steele)

There is an interesting side note to this story; one day, I received an unrelated FB message asking about Willis Jennings (Patricia’s father.) Unrelated to that, earlier that same day, I received word that Patricia Jennings Morriss Caldwell had just passed away at the age of 87. Patricia Jennings is the mother of my HPA classmate, Lex Morriss.

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Georgia_O’Keeffe_in_Hawaii,_1939
Georgia_O’Keeffe_in_Hawaii,_1939
Georgia_O’Keeffe_in_Hawaii_1939
Georgia_O’Keeffe_in_Hawaii_1939
Patricia Jennings-Hana_companion and escort of Georgia OKeeffe
Patricia Jennings-Hana_companion and escort of Georgia OKeeffe
Waterfall — No. III — Iao Valley, 1939, by Georgia O'Keeffe
Waterfall — No. III — Iao Valley, 1939, by Georgia O’Keeffe
OKeeffe-Bella-Donna
OKeeffe-Bella-Donna
O'keeffe_-_'Pineapple_Bud'-Dole_Ad_1939
O'keeffe_-_'Pineapple_Bud',_1939
O’keeffe_-_’Pineapple_Bud’,_1939
O'keeffe_-_'Papaya Tree, Iao Valley',_1939
O’keeffe_-_’Papaya Tree, Iao Valley’,_1939
O'keeffe_-_Dole Pineapple Ad,_1939
O’keeffe_-_Dole Pineapple Ad,_1939
Okeefe-Hibiscus
Okeefe-Hibiscus
Black Lava Bridge, Hana Coast No. 1-1939, by Georgia O'Keeffe
Black Lava Bridge, Hana Coast No. 1-1939, by Georgia O’Keeffe
Hana lava bridge-NYTimes
Hana lava bridge-NYTimes
Black Lava Bridge, Hana Coast-1939, by Georgia O'Keeffe
Black Lava Bridge, Hana Coast-1939, by Georgia O’Keeffe
Georgia_OKeeffe-Waterfall
Georgia_OKeeffe-Waterfall
Georgia Okeeffe-sign
Georgia Okeeffe-sign

Filed Under: Prominent People Tagged With: James Dole, Dole, Georgia O'Keefe, Patricia Jennings, Hawaii, Lanai, Hana, Hawaiian Pineapple Company

September 13, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Cousins

Wigglesworth Dole (born on November 17, 1779) married Elizabeth Haskell (born August 30, 1788.  Among their children, they had two sons, Daniel Dole (born September 9, 1808) and Nathan Dole (born May 8, 1811).

Daniel had a son, Sanford Ballard Dole; Nathan had a son Charles Fletcher Dole – Charles’ first cousin was Sanford Ballard Dole.  Charles had a son James Drummond Dole.  James and Sanford were first cousins once removed (separated by one generation).

Wigglesworth Dole worked as a cabinet maker and kept a small farm, while serving as Deacon of a Congregational Church.  Daniel Dole became a Protestant missionary to Hawai‘i.  Nathan Dole was ordained as minister of the first Congregational Church in Brewer, Maine.  Charles Dole was a Unitarian minister.

Daniel Dole graduated from Bowdoin College in 1836 and Bangor Theological Seminary in 1839, and then married Emily Hoyt Ballard (1807-1844,) October 2, 1840 in Gardiner, Maine.  They were in the Ninth Company of missionaries to Hawai‘i and arrived in May 1841.

The education of their children was a concern of missionaries in Hawai‘i.  There were two major dilemmas, (1) there were a limited number of missionary children and (2) existing schools (which the missionaries taught) served adult Hawaiians (who were taught from a limited curriculum in the Hawaiian language.)

During the first 21-years of the missionary period (1820-1863,) no fewer than 33 children were shipped off to the continent by their parents.  (Seven-year-old Sophia Bingham, the first Caucasian girl born on Oʻahu, daughter of Hiram and Sybil, was sent to the continent in 1828.  She is my great-great-grandmother.)

Resolution 14 of the 1841 General Meeting of the Sandwich Islands Mission changed that; it established a school for the children of the missionaries (May 12, 1841.)  A subsequent Resolution noted “That Mr (Daniel) Dole be located at Punahou, as teacher for the Children of the Mission.”

Daniel Dole resigned from Punahou in 1855 to become the pastor and teacher at Kōloa, Kauai. There, he started the Dole School that later became Kōloa School, the first public school on Kauai.  Like Punahou, it filled the need to educate mission children.

Dole Street, laid out in 1880 and part of the development of the lower Punahou pasture was named after Daniel Dole (other nearby streets were named after other Punahou presidents.)

Sanford Dole, son of Daniel,  was born at Punahou School. Sanford avoided the ministry and from 1866 to 1868 he studied at Williams College in Williamstown, MA, and studied law in Boston. He became a lawyer in Honolulu in 1869.

In 1884 and 1886 Sanford Dole was elected to the Hawai‘i legislature. In 1887 he was appointed an associate justice of the Hawaiian Supreme Court.

Sanford Dole desired the annexation of Hawai‘i by the US so that Hawaiian sugar planters could favorably compete in US markets. He was angered when Queen Liliuokalani, who succeeded her brother Kalakaua in 1891, tried to restore royal power.

In 1893 Dole joined a group of businessmen who, aided by the presence of US Marines, overthrew the monarchy. The next year he became president of the new Republic of Hawai‘i.

Sanford Dole pressed for annexation, but it was delayed until 1898, when Hawaii became a strategic naval base during the Spanish-American War. In 1900 Dole was appointed governor of the new territory.

In 1903 he became presiding judge of the Federal District Court, a position he held until his retirement in 1915. Sanford Dole died in Honolulu on June 9, 1926. (Britannica)

Charles Fletcher Dole (1845–1927) – first cousin to Sanford Dole – was a Unitarian minister; after teaching Greek for a time at the University of Vermont, he was called by the Jamaica Plain church.  Reverend Charles Dole served for more than forty years as pastor of the First Church of Jamaica Plain, MA.

He was prolific writer of books and pamphlets in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, MA, and Chairman of the Association to Abolish War. Charles Dole authored a substantial number of books on politics, history and theology.

Charles Dole often expressed the hope that his son, James, would enter the ministry. (Jamaica Plain Historical Society)  However, James (they called him Jim) concentrated on agriculture and horticulture.

James Dole’s love of farming had grown out of his boyhood experiences at the family’s summer home in Southwest Harbor, Maine. His summer chore was to take care of the family’s vegetable garden. What would have been a burden to most boys was a delight to Jim, and he gradually concluded that his “calling” was not the ministry but “the land.”

James Dole made his way to Hawai‘i with his total savings of about $1,500, intent upon making his fortune. Having just turned 22, this 5’ 11½”, 120 pound Harvard graduate landed in Honolulu on November 16, 1899.

At first he lived with his cousin Sanford. “Within two weeks I found the town quarantined for six months by an outbreak of bubonic plague. During the winter I saw the fire department, with the timely aid of a stiff wind, burn down all of Chinatown (the intention being to disinfect in this thorough manner only one or two blocks).”

The Hawaiian economy was dependent on a single product, sugar, and its fortunes bobbed up and down with the fortunes of sugar. James Dole wrote: “I first came to Hawaii … with some notion of growing coffee – the new Territorial Government was offering homestead lands to people willing to farm them – and I had heard that fortunes were being made in Hawaiian coffee.”

“I began homesteading a [64 acre] farm in the rural district of the island of Oahu, at a place called Wahiawa, about 25 miles from Honolulu.”

“On August 1, 1900 [I] took up residence thereon as a farmer – unquestionably of the dirt variety. After some experimentation, I concluded that it was better adapted to pineapples than to [coffee,] peas, pigs or potatoes, and accordingly concentrated on that fruit.”

Previous growers had tried to ship pineapples as a fresh fruit, but pineapple does not travel well and they did not prosper. James Dole’s intention was to distribute pineapple in cans – also an endeavor at which others had failed.

Undeterred, he planted about 75,000 pineapple slips on twelve of his acres, and simultaneously, with no knowledge of canning, he started a small cannery. “The people of Honolulu scoffed when, in December 1901, 24-year-old James Dole founded the Hawaiian Pineapple Company [Hapco]…”

The Honolulu Advertiser labeled the company “a foolhardy venture which had been tried unsuccessfully before and was sure to fail again.” In another editorial, the paper said, “If pineapple paid, the vacant lands near the town would be covered with them….Export on any great or profitable scale is out of the question.”

in 1910, Sanford Dole wrote to James Dole: “The more I think about it the less I like the proposition of using the Dole name for your enterprise. It is a name which has long been associated in these islands with religious, educational, and philanthropic enterprises…”

“I think it would be regrettable to give [the name Dole] an association of such a commercial character that would adhere to it if made a trade-mark or part of the business name of a corporation.”

James Dole adhered to his cousin’s wishes while he controlled Hapco, but the leaders of the reorganized company soon began exploiting the Dole name in labels and advertising. And after James’s death, Hapco was renamed the Dole Food Company.

Thirty years later – in 1930 – the company (popularly known as “Hapco”) had well over a billion plants in the ground and was packing 104,515,025 cans of pineapple a year for world-wide distribution. (Lots here is from F Washington Jarvis.)

© 2023 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, James Dole, Sanford Dole

January 29, 2023 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Wahiawā

During ancient times, various land divisions were used to divide and identify areas of control. Islands were divided into moku (districts;) moku were divided into ahupuaʻa. A common feature in each ahupuaʻa was water, typically in the form of a stream or spring.

The Island of Oʻahu has six Moku: Kona, Koʻolaupoko, Koʻolauloa, Waialua, Waiʻanae and ʻEwa. The Waiʻanae ahupuaʻa, within the moku has an un-typical shape – it is sometimes referred to in two parts: Waiʻanae Kai, on its western side, runs from the ocean to the Waiʻanae Mountains (like a typical ahupuaʻa – this portion of Waiʻanae runs from the mountain to the sea.)

From there, however, the section referred to as Waiʻanae Uka continues across Oʻahu’s central plain and extends up into the Koʻolau Mountains – extending approximately 15-miles from the Waianae Mountains to the Koʻolau Mountains and ends up overlooking the windward coastline. (Each section is within the same ahupuaʻa.)

Wahiawā, situated in Waiʻanae Uka, was from very ancient times, identified with the ruling aliʻi of Oʻahu. The name breaks down to Wahi (place), a (belonging to), wa (noise.) (Handy)

Perhaps the name goes back to the time when Hiʻiaka was in this general area and could see waves dashing against the coast afar off and hear the ocean’s ceaseless roar… (Handy)

The chiefs of Līhuʻe, Wahiawā, and Halemano on Oʻahu were called Lo chiefs, poʻe Lo Aliʻi (”people from whom to obtain a chief”,) because they preserved their chiefly kapus…

They lived in the mountains (i kuahiwi); and if the kingdom was without a chief, there in the mountains could be found a high chief (aliʻi nui) for the kingdom. Or if a chief was without a wife, there one could be found – one from chiefly ancestors. (Kamakau)

A “sizable population” filled the Wahiawā area in traditional Hawaiian times, based on the “various areas of loʻi northwest of the present town of Wahiawā. … There were extensive terraces that drew water from Wahiawā Stream, both above and below the present town.”

“There were many small terrace areas along the sides of the valleys of all the streams of this general area. … The peculiarity of this area, apart from distance from the sea, is that it is the only extensive level area on (Oʻahu.)” (Handy)

In more modern times, at the height of the sandalwood boom, Kamehameha was buying foreign ships, including six vessels between 1816 and 1818, to transport his own wood to the Orient. (Kuykendall) According to Kamakau, Wahiawā was a prime source for the valuable wood; the largest trees were from Wahiawā.

Over the remainder of the decade, the population fluctuated. Things changed at the end of the decade. Following the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, western military and agricultural interests would transform the Wahiawā landscape.

Land that had previously been leased to Oʻahu businessman James Robinson for cattle grazing was designated Wahiawā homestead land by The Land Act of 1895 (as homestead land, including water rights from the Kaukonahua Stream (not DHHL homestead, this was for general homesteading.))

Then, in 1897, Californian, Byron Clark, became the Hawaiian Republic’s commissioner of agriculture. In looking for land for him to settle on, he learned of the availability of land at Wahiawā.

Clark organized a group of other Californians (as well as others) to join him in settling the whole tract of thirteen hundred acres — which became known as the Wahiawā Colony Tract. Having formed an agricultural cooperative called the Hawaiian Fruit and Plant Company, the homesteaders began formalizing and refining the physical organization of their Wahiawā settlement.

To reach Wahiawa, the homesteaders forded the north and south forks of Kaukonahua Stream which surrounds Wahiawa, making it an island within an island. Life was hard but they cleared the land and planted their required fruit trees and crops.

They built a one-lane bridge, constructed homes, laid out roads, obtained water rights, built a store and post office, and saw to it their children were educated. In a very short time the homesteaders had a community and started the pineapple industry.

Clark found some discarded pineapple slips which he shared with Alfred W Eames and in 1900 they harvested their first crop in the community. Clark experimented in his home kitchen to can the fruit in glass jars.

Eames founded the Hawaiian Island Packing Company and built his first cannery in the Wahiawā heights area in 1902. This company was later known as Del Monte Fresh Produce (Hawaii) Inc.

Another homesteader and planter, Will P Thomas, operated under the Thomas Pineapple Company, which in 1917 following his death, became Libby McNeill & Libby of Honolulu.

Initially each settler lived in a house on his five-acre parcel in the town site and farmed his other land in the surrounding area. It was soon discovered, however, that each settler preferred to reside on his own farmstead, holding his town lot in reserve.

The homesteaders abandoned the village plan and agreed that one man, Thomas Holloway, would live on their 145-acre central lot site.

On August 27, 1902 a trust deed, referred to as the Holloway Trust, formally set aside the central town lots for the use and benefit of the Settlement Association of Wahiawā resident landowners. Within a few years, Wahiawā Town was underway.

Some of the town’s streets would be named for the early homesteaders – including Clark, Kellogg, Thomas and Eames streets (initial mapping shows California Avenue as the first, and main, road.)

Another notable change at this time was the result of a presidential order of July 20, 1899 setting aside Waianae Uka lands as the military reservation. Ten years later, in 1909, these lands would become the site of Schofield Barracks, named after Lt. General John M. Schofield.

Another homesteader to the area was James D Dole, who moved to Wahiawā in 1900 to attempt farming on 61-acres. Dole described Wahiawā at the beginning of the 20th century as “a park-like stretch of some 1,400-acres of third-class pasture land, dotted with shacks of 13 hopeful homesteaders for whom (the) general sentiment was merely pity.”

Dole founded Hawaiian Pineapple Company in 1901. He built a cannery next to his pineapple fields in Wahiawā and packed his first cans in 1903. By 1904, Wahiawā was known as “The City of Pines” and was considered the “hub” of the pineapple industry in the world.

Within a few years pineapple production at Wahiawā had increased that Dole planned a cannery at Iwilei, near the shipping facilities of Honolulu Harbor. Today his Hawaiian Pineapple Company (HAPCO) is known as Dole Food Company, Hawaii.

In order to transport the pineapple from Wahiawā to Honolulu, Dole persuaded the Oʻahu Railway & Land Company to extend its rail line to Wahiawā. The line to Wahiawā was constructed in 1906.

Another change occurred on January 23, 1906 when the Wailua Agricultural Company, later known as Waialua Sugar Company, constructed the Wahiawā Dam and Reservoir, a 2.5-billion-gallon capacity reservoir (the largest in Hawaiʻi;) it is generally known as Lake Wilson, today.

Another “story that has never been told in Hawaii” were the events of December 7, 1941 in Wahiawā. While the incident is usually called “the bombing of Pearl Harbor,” other areas on O‘ahu were also shelled. In Wahiawā two civilians died, 22 were injured, and two houses were burned down.

Sixty-seven-year-old Soon Chip Kim was sitting in a Wahiawa plantation cafeteria when the town was fired upon. The bullets went through the roof, killing Kim.

Richard Masaru Soma, 22, was waiting at a bus stop on Kamehameha Highway for a ride to go fishing with a friend when Wahiawā town was strafed by enemy fire. Soma was injured and died five days later. (Napoleon)

In addition to the two civilian casualties, 22 people were injured in Wahiawā. Dr. Merton Mack, who Purnell said was the only physician in town at the time, treated the injured at his clinic on the corner of California Avenue and Kamehameha Highway.

The enemy also suffered casualties in Wahiawa. According to Purnell, a Japanese plane, engaged in a dogfight with an American plane, was hit and crashed into the Hawaiian Electric substation on Neal Avenue, killing the pilot and co-pilot. On its way down, the plane clipped a house, setting it ablaze. The fire spread to a neighboring home, destroying both buildings.

The start of World War II further helped to accelerate developments within Wahiawā to accommodate the needs of the growing military population. Wahiawā Elementary School, which started in 1899 to educate children of farmers who were brought in from California, closed their doors in the 1940s to become the new Wahiawā General Hospital.

At the end of World War II, the facility continued to remain in operation under the leaders of the Wahiawā Hospital Association. The 72-bed acute care facility was dedicated in 1958, under the official name, Wahiawā General Hospital.

Post World War II, the old Wahiawā Hotel had been used as living quarters for area school teachers. By the 1960s, Wahiawā teachers, who had been quartered at the teachers’ cottages (as they referred to them), were forced to relocate as plans for the new Wahiawā Branch Library were underway; the library opened on July 19, 1965. (Lots of information here from Cultural Surveys and Wahiawā Historical Society.)

© 2023 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Economy, Place Names Tagged With: James Dole, Pineapple, Waianae, Wahiawa Colony, Hawaii, Oahu, Schofield Barracks, Wahiawa

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