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October 9, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kalaeloa

Kalaeloa is literally translated as, “the distant point or the long cape.”  It is situated on the ʻEwa Plain in the ahupuaʻa of Honouliuli.

Kalaeloa region was a very good place for fishing and shoreline collecting; the koʻa (fishing ground) outside of Kalaeloa is called Hani-o. (Beckwith)

A nearby heiau on Puʻu o Kapolei (hill of beloved Kapo (sister of Pele)) marked the movements of the sun and served as an astronomical marker to designate the seasons.

“(T)he people of Oʻahu reckoned from the setting of the sun at Puu-o-Kapolei, until it set in the hollow of Mahinaona, it was called Kau. And from Puu-o-Kapolei, the sun moved south (noting winter).”  (Polynesian Voyaging Society)

The area between Puʻu o Kapolei and Kalaeloa is known as Kaupeʻa (what we generally refer to as the ʻEwa Plain.)  Kaupeʻa is said to be the realm of the ao kuewa or ao ‘auwana (the homeless or wandering souls). Kaupeʻa was the wandering place of those who died having no rightful place to go.  (Maly)

In 1793, Captain George Vancouver described this area as desolate and barren:  “From the commencement of the high land to the westward of Opooroah (Puʻuloa – Pearl Harbor) was … one barren rocky waste, nearly destitute of verdure, cultivation or inhabitants, with little variation all to the west point of the island. …”

In 1839, Missionary EO Hall described the area between Pearl Harbor and Kalaeloa as follows: “Passing all the villages (after leaving the Pearl River) at one or two of which we stopped, we crossed the barren desolate plain”.  (Robicheaux)  In the 1880s, these lands were being turned over to cattle grazing and continued through the early-1900s.

Kalaeloa was first renamed on June 5, 1786 by British Captain Nathanial Portlock – he named the cape Point Banks, honoring his patron Sir Joseph Banks.  (Banks was  the naturalist on Captain Cook’s first voyage into the Pacific.)

However, the cape was shortly thereafter given a new name, as a result of an unfortunate grounding of the ‘Arthur’ at that point on October 31, 1796; the ship was captained by Henry Barber.

“Unscrupulous, tyrannical, opportunistic, over-reaching and a trifle-fond of the bottle” is a brief description by one of Captain Barber.  (Scott)

On a voyage to China, Barber called at Honolulu for supplies. He left Honolulu, heading for Kauaʻi to get a supply of yams, at about 6 pm, October 31. At 8:10 pm Barber’s ship struck a coral shoal.

After scraping bottom, Barber and his crew of twenty-two, manned the life-boats and reached shore through the pounding surf (six drowned in the process.)  The Arthur was driven on the reef and broke up.

The next morning when Barber returned to the wrecked Arthur he found there John Young, who happened to be on Oʻahu at the time and, learning of the disaster, hurried to the scene to take charge of the efforts to salvage the cargo.  (Howay)

Barber was a successful and influential trader across the Pacific.  “If America was the main supplier of the Australian market in the years immediately succeeding the settlement of Port Jackson (Sydney), India was a close contender. Captain Henry Barber, Master of the 85-ton snow Arthur, operated from both centres …” (Journal of the Polynesian Society) He included China in his trade loop.

“(T)here were but 500 otter skins on board when she was cast away, which he carried with him to Canton, 500 otter skins in those days were worth some $20 to $40,000”  (Polynesian, February 8, 1851) The greater part of the skins and ships stores were saved.

Several years later, on his way to China, Barber passed through Hawaiʻi again (December 17, 1802.)  He learned that King Kamehameha had retrieved ten guns off the wreck of the Arthur and installed them for the defense of a newly built fort in Lāhainā, Maui.

Barber claimed the guns were his, but Kamehameha refused, claiming possession was nine-tenths of the law.  To top it off, since Barber was in Hawaiʻi to reprovision, Kamehameha made Barber pay for his supplies with gunpowder.

Since the grounding of the Arthur, the point has been associated with the captain of the ill-fated ship. In 1968, the US Board of Geographic Names dropped the apostrophe, changing the name from Barber’s Point to Barbers Point.

This wasn’t the only wreck, here.  In looking for a lighthouse here in 1880, Hawaiian government surveyor William Alexander noted, “I examined the coast for some miles in the neighborhood of Barber’s Point, selected a site for a light house and marked the spot by a pile of stones and a staff with a red and white flag. I also fixed the position … where there are several pieces of … the French whaleship Marquis de Turenne, which was wrecked about a mile off the point in 1855.”  (Lighthouse Friends)

“A shoal with only 6 to 10 feet of water on it is said to extend 2 to 3 miles south by west from the point, and it should be sounded. In fact it is a question whether the light house might not be placed on a shallow spot or “okohola” whale’s back, as the natives call it, a mile or more offshore.”  (Alexander, Lighthouse Friends)

The first Barbers Point lighthouse tower was “constructed of coral (another source noted lava) in the days of King Kalākaua in 1888”. It stood 42 feet.

The current 72-foot tower was built in 1933.  The older tower was intentionally toppled on 29 December 1933, the same day the new tower was lit.   The light was automated in 1964.

Aviation facilities were also constructed nearby.  Starting in 1925, a mooring mast for lighter-than-air dirigibles was erected.  The original field was called Navy Mooring Mast Field because the Navy had originally planned to have the ‘Akron’ based there when in Hawaiʻi. But the ‘Akron’ crashed, ending the project.  The mooring mast was taken down in 1932 and planning moved forward for other aviation facilities.

Around 1940, two air stations were built at Kaupeʻa (the ʻEwa Plain the Naval Air Station Barber’s Point, the larger and the Marine Corps Air Station, ʻEwa, the smaller.)  Following the outbreak of World War II, facilities were expanded to sustain four carrier groups.

Ewa was officially closed on June 18, 1952 and its property assumed by Naval Air Station Barbers Point.  (The thirty-two revetments on the property, originally designed to shield aircraft from bomb blasts, have served as stables since the 1950s and provide a home for approximately 50 horses.)

Barbers Point was decommissioned by the Navy in 1998 and turned over to the State of Hawaiʻi for use as Kalaeloa Airport and is used by the US Coast Guard, Hawaii Community College Flight Program, Hawaiʻi National Guard and general aviation, as well as an alternate landing site for Honolulu International Airport.

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Place Names Tagged With: Hawaii, Oahu, Kalaeloa, Ewa, Barbers Point

October 6, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kakaʻako Pumping Station

The word “Sewer” is derived from the term “seaward” in Old English, as in ditches and ravines slightly sloped to run waste water from land to sea.

From an 1857 story in the Commercial Pacific Advertiser it appears that the first sewer facility to be constructed on Oʻahu was a storm drain located at Queen Street at the foot of Kaʻahumanu Street opposite Pier 11.  (ASCE)

Despite three outbreaks of smallpox, a typhus epidemic and two cholera epidemics between 1853 and 1895, no other serious actions were taken to improve conditions.

Honolulu was a growing city and needed a better way of disposing its wastewater.

At that time, the city had grown to approximately 30,000-people, and it was estimated that about 1.8-million gallons of sewage was being disposed of in the City septic systems daily.  This was much more than septic tank excavators could keep up with – which caused sanitation and odor concerns.

In 1897, Rudolph Hering, a New York Sanitary Engineer, was hired to prepare specifications for a Honolulu sewerage system, pumping station and ocean outfall (Hering had previously designed the New York and other large city sewage systems.)

Hering recommended a “separate system” whereby separate networks of conduits would carry sewage and storm waters, a system still used today in Honolulu.

Work on the system began in 1899 and sewer lines were laid out in a gravity flow pattern in a rectangular fashion and ran along Alapaʻi, River and South Streets, past Thomas Square, and ended in the Punahou area.

The system was extended to the remaining portion of what was then considered to be “town,” between Liliha on the ʻEwa side, Artesian Street, beyond Punahou to Judd Street, and including the Kewalo District.

The expansion was later delayed, due to a lack of funding. Much of the extension work thereafter was performed by property owners who were furnished piping and sewer components by the government.

The collection lines terminated at a main reservoir (the underground reservoir was dubbed the Hering Reservoir) at the low point at the intersection of Keawe Street and Ala Moana Boulevard in Kakaʻako.  (Darnell)  The sewage would then be pumped out to sea.

In addition, OG Traphagen (designer of the Moana Hotel) was hired to design the steam-powered sewer pumping station at this low spot.

The cost was tremendous for the construction of the lines, and construction was stopped several times due to lack of funding. The sewer outfall to the ocean was built in 1899. The outfall ran some 3,800-feet out to sea at a depth of 40-feet of water, rather than farther out to a 100-foot depth (again, due to funding constraints.)  (Darnell)

In 1900, the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was constructed; with features such as large arched windows, exterior walls of local lava rock, roofs of green tile and a smokestack 76-feet tall.

The architectural style is Industrial Romanesque with the walls constructed of locally-cut bluestone and concrete with plaster finished interior walls.

The first sewer system connections (to the Department of Health building on Punchbowl and Queen Streets, and to the Post Office building on Bethel and Merchant) were completed in 1900. This was followed by the slow conversion of other properties from cesspools to sewers.

Two additions were built to support the Pumping Station facility. In 1925, an additional “Pump” building of brick to house a high-speed, electric powered pump was added and the original plant was turned into a machine shop, storeroom and office. In 1939 a second “New” Pump House was constructed on the southwestern side of the existing structures.

The use of the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was abandoned by the City and County of Honolulu when it built a new pumping station on the southwest portion of the block, adjacent to the Historic Ala Moana Pumping Station in 1955.

Now under the jurisdiction of the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority, it is restored by the nonprofit Hawaiʻi Architectural Foundation.

Today, the interior of the 1900 Pumping Station does not contain any historic equipment or utilities.  (Lots of information here from HCDA, HHF, ASCE and Darnell.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Economy, General, Buildings Tagged With: Honolulu, Oahu, Downtown Honolulu, Kakaako, Kakaako Pumping Station, Hawaii

October 4, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kimo Ona-Milliona

James was son of William and Martha (Adams) Campbell, descended from the Scottish Campbell clan, the eighth child in the family of eight boys and four girls (born in Ireland, February 4, 1826.)  His father was a carpenter who operated a furniture and cabinet shop adjacent to the home where he and his wife raised their family.

With limited opportunities on that island, at the age of 13, he stowed away on a schooner for Canada and later wound up on a whaler out of New Bedford and was bound for the Pacific.  He survived a shipwreck in the South Pacific (Tuamotus) on the way.

He and two shipmates immediately were seized by the Islanders and bound to trees to await their fate.  After Campbell fixed the chief’s broken musket, they were freed and accepted as members of the community. A few months later Campbell left the Island by drifting out to a passing schooner that took him to Tahiti, and later (1850) he went to Hawaiʻi.

He settled in Lāhainā, Maui and honed his skill as a carpenter in building and repairing boats and constructing homes.  He boarded with a European named Barla and married Barla’s only child, Hannah. There were no children of this marriage, which ended with the death of young Hannah Barla Campbell in 1858.

He expanded beyond carpentry and ventured into the Islands’ fledgling sugar industry.  In 1860, Campbell, with Henry Turton and James Dunbar, established the Pioneer Mill Company (Dunbar later left;) they not only invested capital in the business, they also worked alongside employees in the field and mill.

When Campbell and Turton were starting the plantation, the small sugar mill consisted of three wooden rollers set upright, with mules providing the power to turn the heavy rollers. The cane juice ran into a series of boiling kettles that originally had been used on whaling ships.

By 1876, the annual production had increased to 1,708-tons of raw sugar and the World’s Fair in Philadelphia awarded Pioneer Mill a prize for its fine quality sugar that year. In 1882, Honolulu Iron Works built an iron three-roller mill for the factory and soon there were six boilers generating steam power to drive the machinery.

Pioneer Mill Company not only survived but thrived and enabled Campbell to build a palatial home in Lāhainā.  Despite his success in sugar, his interests turned to other matters, primarily ranching and real estate and he started to acquire lands in Oʻahu, Maui and the island of Hawaiʻi.

In 1876, he purchased approximately 15,000-acres at Kahuku on the northernmost tip of Oʻahu from HA Widemann and Julius L Richardson. In 1877, he acquired from John Coney 41,000-acres of ranch land at Honouliuli.

In 1877, he sold his interest in Pioneer Mill Company to his partner, Turton; he married Abigail Kuaihelani Maipinepine (age 19) and soon after moved to a home on Emma Street in Honolulu, which Campbell purchased from Archibald S Cleghorn in 1878.  (Now the site of the Pacific Club.)

Princess Kaʻiulani, daughter of the Cleghorns, was born there in 1875. The Campbells’ first daughter, Abigail Wahiikaahuula, later Princess Abigail Kawānanakoa, was born in the same room as Princess Kaʻiulani. (Other children included Alice, Beatrice and Muriel; four other children were born to the couple but died in infancy.)

In 1883 he built the Campbell Block Building at the corner of Merchant and Fort Streets, Honolulu, where he established his office. (This building was headquarters for the Campbell Estate until 1967, when the Estate constructed the modern James Campbell Building at this site to house its offices.)

In 1885, Pioneer Mill Company, cultivating about 600 of its 900 acres of land and producing about 2,000 tons of sugar a year, encountered difficulties and Turton declared bankruptcy.  To protect his mortgage, Campbell, with financial partner Paul Isenberg of Hackfeld and Company, acquired all the stock and Campbell again took on management of the operation.

With major interests on Maui and Oʻahu, Campbell split his time between the Islands.  He was a member of the House of Nobles representing Maui, Molokai and Lānaʻi in the special session of 1887 and the regular session of 1888.

Back on Oʻahu, critics scoffed at the doubtful value of Campbell’s purchase of Honouliuli. But he envisioned supplying the arid area with water and commissioned California well-driller James Ashley to drill a well on his Honouliuli Ranch.  In 1879, Ashley drilled Hawaiʻi’s first artesian well; Campbell’s vision had made it possible for Hawaiʻi’s people to grow sugar cane on the dry lands of the ʻEwa Plain.

In 1889, Campbell leased about 40,000-acres of land for fifty years to BF Dillingham (of Oʻahu Railway and Land Co;) after several assignments and sub-leases, about 7,860-acres of Campbell land ended up with Ewa Planation.

(ʻEwa Plantation was considered one of the most prosperous plantations in Hawaiʻi and in 1931 a new 50-year lease was executed, completing the agreement with Oʻahu Railway and Land Company and beginning an association with Campbell Estate.  The ʻEwa mill closed in the mid-1970s; the mill was demolished in 1985.)

After a lengthy illness, Campbell died on April 21, 1900, in his Emma Street home. On the afternoon of his funeral the banks and most of the large business houses closed.  (In January of 1902, Abigail Campbell married Colonel Sam Parker.)

“We knew him then as a very capable and industrious mechanic at Lahaina. By hard work and sound judgment, twenty years later he had built up a valuable sugar plantation in Lahaina. From that beginning of wealth he became the possessor of more than three millions of property, all of it, to the best of our knowledge, honestly gained without detriment to others.”

“Mr. Campbell was a good citizen, although not a religious man. He was remarkable for sound business judgment, capacity for hard persistent effort, and for great personal courage, qualities very commonly accompanying Scotch descent.”  (The Friend, May 1, 1900)

When Campbell died, the Estate of James Campbell was created as a private trust to administer his assets for the benefit of his heirs (in 2007, the James Campbell Company succeeded the Estate of James Campbell.) The Estate played a pivotal role in Hawaiʻi history, from the growth of sugar plantations to the growing new City of Kapolei.

Over the years, Campbell became known by the Hawaiians as “Kimo Ona-Milliona” (James the Millionaire.)  Campbell himself said that the principle upon which he had accumulated his wealth was in always living on less than he made.  (Lots of information here from Campbell Estate publications.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Prominent People, Economy Tagged With: Campbell Block, Lahaina, Ewa, Ewa Plantation, Kawananakoa, Pioneer Mill, Hawaii, Oahu, Maui, Kahuku, James Campbell

September 27, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kalauhaʻihaʻi Fishpond

In ancient Hawai‘i, fishponds were an integral part of the ahupua‘a.  Hawaiians built enclosures in near shore waters to raise fish for their communities and families.  It is believed these were first built around the fifteenth century.

A fish was kapu to the Hawaiians during its spawning season, to allow a variety of fish to reproduce. Although the chief or commoners were unable to catch fish in the sea at specific time spans, they were available in the fishponds because fishponds were considered a part of the land.

In 1848, when King Kamehameha III pronounced the Great Māhele, or land distribution, Hawaiian fishponds were considered private property.  This was confirmed in subsequent Court cases that noted “titles to fishponds are recognized to the same extent and in the same manner as rights recognized in fast land.”

Maunalua Bay, located at the southeast end of Oʻahu, was once home to many large Hawaiian fishponds; one of these was Kalauhaʻihaʻi fishpond (sometimes referenced as Kalauhaʻehaʻe (and Lucas Pond/Spring.))

Its original owners were King Kamehameha I and Queen Kaʻahumanu who maintained a summer residence on Paikō Beach.  Kalauhaʻihaʻi was once one of Oʻahu’s most thriving and productive fishponds, raising awa, aholehole, mullet and other favorites.

The name Kalauhaʻihaʻi refers to Queen Kaʻahumanu’s breaking of the old kapu (the ancient system of laws and regulations) when she became Christian, which is said to have taken place on the property.

King Kamehameha later gave the land, including the spring and pond, to Captain Alexander Adams (1780–1871.)  “Many were the self-sacrificing services rendered Kamehameha and Kaʻahumanu by Captain Adams, and they both loved him for his loyal devotion.”

“In appreciation they gave him the whole of the land of Niu, Oʻahu, and included also in this gift their favorite resort subsequently called Kalauhaihai, the place where Kaahumanu first proclaimed her renunciation of ancient rites and customs, to adopt modern civilization and customs.”

“That was why the place was so named, meaning a scattering or dropping off of leaves; plucking withered leaves, a renunciation of the ancient customs to adopt the new.”  (Thrum)

Ownership of the 2,446-acres were claimed by Alexander Adams under Claim No. 802 filed February 14, 1848, with the Land Commission at the time of the Great Māhele.

The claim states: “From the testimony of Governor Kekūanāoʻa … it appears that the claimant was created lord of konohiki of this land, in the time of Kamehameha I, and that he has exercised the konohikiship of the same without dispute ever since the year of Our Lord 1822.”

The Niu Valley estate was passed down to Adams’ granddaughter, Mary Lucas; Kalauhaʻihaʻi fishpond was later used for a family dairy by Mary Lucas.  She started subdividing the property in the 1950s; Adam’s descendants remain in the area.

In the 1960s, Mr. Tad Hara had a two-story wooden house built over the still productive pond.  The home was designed with a glass floor to allow Mr. Hara to view the fish in the pond.

The 3-foot-deep pond was filled with aholehole (Hawaiian flagtail,) ʻopae lolo (aloha prawn,)ʻamaʻama (mullet,) awa (milkfish,) hapawai (brackish water snail) and koi.  In 1989, Mr. Hara registered his fishpond with the State Water Commission.

Widening Kalanianaʻole Highway (the fourth busiest highway in the State) in the early-1990s changed things.

During construction, they ruptured the lava tube connecting Kalauhaʻihaʻi Fishpond to the underground artesian source directly mauka of the pond that altered spring flow to the ocean, diverted the water to utility line trenches and the sewer.

A legal battle ensued to restore the spring’s flow; Mr. Hara eventually sold the property to the DOT.

A community effort to preserve the pond resulted in a NOAA-sponsored plan and legislation to keep the property in state hands and away from public auction (as well as providing statewide preference for the reconstruction, restoration, repair, or use of Hawaiian fishponds.)

Since 2007, Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center has been working to save Kalauhaʻihaʻi; they happily reported that on July 11, 2013, they were given the keys to the property and permission to restore the fishpond and care for the grounds.

In 2021, Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center worked with the State Legislature to secure $1 million to go to DLNR Engineering Branch for the reconnection and long awaited repair of the water flow at Kalauhaʻihaʻi.

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Hawaiian Traditions, Place Names Tagged With: Oahu, Alexander Adams, Maunalua Bay, Maunalua, Fishpond, Niu, Kalauhaihai Fishpond, Hawaii

September 26, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Swillauea”

In 1898, the US Army built a seawall and filled a submerged coral reef on the ‘Ewa (western) side of Kaʻākaukukui for a gun emplacement at Fort Armstrong to protect the mouth of adjoining Honolulu Harbor.

At the turn of the century, Ala Moana Boulevard was built at what was then the shoreline, and the broad areas on both sides of the future Kapiʻolani Boulevard consisted of rice fields.

The dredging of harbors, offshore areas and the Ala Wai Canal provided fill for the reclamation of the ‘swamps.’  The construction of the Ala Wai stopped the annual flooding of Waikīkī.

At the beginning of the twentieth-century, the stretch of coast makai of Ala Moana Boulevard between Fort Armstrong (Piers 1 & 2 at Honolulu Harbor) and Waikīkī was the site of the Honolulu garbage dump, which burned almost continually.

The residue from burned rubbish was also used to reclaim wetlands.  This residue provided a fill that was quite inert and solid.  Thus, a rubbish dump was considered a cost-free method for a landowner to reclaim swampy land.

Since at least the 1850s, the Hawaiian Monarchy was providing urban public services in Honolulu, including refuse collection and disposal.  Horse-drawn wagons were first used for the collection of refuse; the horses were stabled in Kakaʻako.

Following Annexation and Territorial status (1900,) garbage removal was one of six items listed in the Oʻahu County’s 1905 monthly operating expenses, along with the police and fire departments, the electric light plant, city parks and the Royal Hawaiian Band.  The only direct income for Oʻahu County was its refuse collection fees.

Oʻahu, like many other coastal communities, was ringed with tidelands.  The area was traditionally noted for its fishponds and salt pans, and for the marsh lands where pili grass and other plants could be collected.  About one-third of the coastal plain at Kakaʻako was a wetland.  The entire shoreline was coral rubble bordered by fringing reefs and mudflats.

As time went on, when the fishponds were no longer used, they were more often than not filled with material dredged from the ocean or hauled from nearby areas, garbage and general material from other sources. These reclaimed areas provided valuable new land near the heart of growing urban Honolulu.

The ʻili of Kaʻākaukukui was awarded by land court to Victoria Kamāmalu; Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop inherited the land, which later became part of the Kamehameha Schools (formerly the Bishop Estate). The Territory of Hawai‘i acquired the land in 1919.

Just as the Army had done at Fort Armstrong, the government built a new seawall, extending east to reclaim more Kaʻākaukukui reef and submerged land.

During the 1920s, the channel and basin on the Waikīkī (eastern) side of the growing Kakaʻako peninsula was dredged as a small boat harbor, called Kewalo Basin, to relieve overcrowding at Honolulu Harbor by the sampan (tuna fishing) fleet.

Hawaiian Dredging Company completed Kewalo Basin’s wharf and channel in 1925, and by 1930 the sampan fishing fleet was relocated to their new base.

In 1930, a garbage incinerator was constructed on Mohala Street (now ʻĀhui Street) near the east end of the Kakaʻako seawall (near Kewalo Basin.)  This moved the open dump fires into a more controlled and contained facility.

In 1931, the City and County of Honolulu dedicated the land on the Waikīkī-side of Kewalo Basin as Moana Park (the name was later changed to Ala Moana (“the path to the sea.”))

After the 1930 incinerator was constructed on ʻĀhui Street, the Star-Bulletin named it “Swillauea” (a play with words associated with the long burning fires of Kīlauea volcano on Hawai‘i Island) and lamented, “… Oh Swillauea-by-the-Sea … a monument to despair, foolishness and ugliness … all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t find another place to burn the City’s rubbish except in the City’s front yard ….” (Mason Architects)

In the 1940s, another, larger incinerator was added, as well as a significant new seawall, 500-feet seaward of the old shoreline, enclosing more acreage of tidelands to be filled with the post-combusted ash.   (The large boulders laid in the wall lining Kewalo Channel and around the point came from Punchbowl Crater during the initial development of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific by James W. Glover, Ltd.)

Incinerator Number One was later removed from service after the new incinerator on ʻOhe Street was constructed in 1946-48.  With the completion of the seawall in 1949, filling operations began and by the mid-1950s the shallow reef of Ka’ākaukukui was completely covered over.

And, again, in 1950 another seawall was extended and ash filled areas making more usable acreage.  Following statehood in 1959, government officials met to discuss the near-completion of the fill behind the seawall.   As the height increased, the State expressed concern over the mountain of ash which was growing so rapidly.

The State finally told the City in 1971 to stop placing any more ash to the pile.  Parts of the ash pile were then 25 feet above the top of the seawall.

The incinerator was finally shut down in 1977 because it could not meet the increasingly stringent air pollution standards. Then, in 1992, the State constructed Kakaʻako Waterfront Park on the ash pile (the young and young-at-heart now slide on cardboard down the steep grass-covered incinerator ash hill.)

The second incinerator, on ʻOhe Street, was renovated and is now used as the Children’s Discovery Center.  (The initial incinerator on ʻĀhui Street was used in 1952 by United Fishing Agency as part of their fish auction facility – the fish auction has since relocated to the Commercial Fishing Village at Pier 38.)

(Lots of information here is from the Historic American Buildings Survey for the Kewalo Incinerator and Cultural Surveys.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Economy, Place Names Tagged With: Kewalo, Kakaako, Kaakaukukui, Ala Moana, Hawaii, Oahu, Kewalo Basin

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