Treaty of Reciprocity | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

July 2, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Honuʻapo

Honuʻapo is literally translated as “caught turtle” (Pukui,) but others suggest Honuʻapo was originally Honua‘apo, meaning “embraced land”, or land embraced by a kapu. “Honua‘apo” has its origin with a cave that was a place of refuge and was therefore kapu. (Haun)

When Captain James Cook traveled this part of the Island in January 1799, King, who accompanied Cook on the voyage, wrote:
“It is not only the worst part of the Island but as barren waste looking a country as can be conceived to exist…”

“… we could discern black streaks coming from the Mountain even down to the seaside… horrid and dismal as this part of the Island appears, yet there are many villages interspersed, and it struck as being more populous than the part of Opoona (Puna) which joins Koa (Kaʻū.) There are houses built even on the ruins (lava flows) we have described.”

In July 1823, Protestant missionary Reverend William Ellis visited Kaʻū and said this of Honuʻapo: “From the manner in which we were received at Honuʻapo, we should not think this village had been often visited by foreigners…”

“… for on our descending from the high land to the lava on which the town stands, the natives came running out to meet us from all quarters, and soon gathered so thickly around us, that we found it difficult to proceed…”

“We passed through the town to the residence of the head man, situated on the farthest point towards the sea. He invited us to his house, procured us water to wash our feet with, and immediately sent to an adjacent pond for some fish for our supper.”

“While that was preparing, the people assembled in crowds around the house, and a little before sun-set Mr. Thurston preached to them in the front yard. Upwards of 200 were present…”

Soon after Ellis’s visit to Honuʻapo there was an influx of Westerners. The ever-growing population of Westerners throughout Hawai‘i forced socioeconomic and demographic changes. (Rechtman)

At the time of the Māhele (1848,) Honuʻapo ahupuaʻa (totaling 2,200 acres) was awarded as Konohiki Land to William Charles Lunalilo.

In 1868, a series of earthquakes were felt and lava began flowing on the slopes of Mauna Loa. These initial eruptions “destroyed a large stone church at Kahuku, and also all the stone dwelling houses in that place, including the houses….at the foot of the mountain”.

Then on April 4th an even larger eruption occurred. Fredrick S Lyman, who witnessed the eruption first hand, wrote: “Soon after four o’clock p.m. on Thursday we experienced a most fearful earthquake. First the earth swayed to and fro from north to south, then from east to west, then round and round, up and down, and finally in every imaginable direction, for several minutes, everything crashing around, and the trees thrashing as if torn by a hurricane, and there was a sound as of a mighty rushing wind.”

“It was impossible to stand: we had to sit on the ground, bracing with hands and feet to keep from being rolled over…we saw…an immense torrent of molten lava, which rushed across the plain below…swallowing everything in its way;–trees, houses, cattle, horses, goats, and men, all overwhelmed in an instant. This devouring current passed over a distance of about three miles in as many minutes, and then ceased.”

Within minutes of the initial quake, the ocean rose up and a tsunami pounded the coast, washing inland in some locations as far as 150 yards. It was recorded that the wave destroyed 108 houses in Ka‘ū and drowned forty-six people.

The tsunami devastated coastal villages and forced people to move inland to towns such as Nāʻālehu and Pāhala. Lyman wrote: “The villages on the shore were swept away by the great wave that rushed upon the land immediately after the earthquake. The eruption of earth destroyed thirty-one lives, but the waves swallowed a great number.” (Lyman; Journal of Science, 1868)

The coastal trail (alaloa) that Ellis walked was later modified to accommodate horse and cart as foreign population into the area increased. The trail maintained its original alignment at least through Nīnole and Punaluʻu. The 1868 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Kaʻū coastline and washed out much of the trail.

The trail was then straightened, realigned and widened, and took a mauka course and eventually became the Government Road and was the most direct means to reach villages and commerce.

With the treaty of Reciprocity and growing demand for Hawaiʻi sugar, there was a rise of sugar plantations throughout Kaʻū, including Honuʻapo; mills were built in Pāhala (1868,) Hīlea (1878) and Honuʻapo (1881.)

The sugar industry quickly set down roots in Honuʻapo and erected a sugar mill, a large sugar warehouse and various out buildings. All of these developed areas were connected with a small gauge railroad network.

Sugar from the Pāhala sugar mill was originally transported to Punaluʻu wharf for shipping. After the dredging of Honuʻapo Bay in the 1870s and construction of the landing at Honuʻapo by 1883, most of the sugar in Kaʻū was shipped out of Honuʻapo.

Honuʻapo wharf served the communities of Waiʻōhinu, Nāʻālehu, Hīlea and Honuʻapo. Punaluʻu harbor served the sugar plantation at Pāhala, as well as the communities of Nīnole and Punaluʻu.

First, government ships then private interests provided inter and intra-island transportation. Competitors Wilder Steamship Co (1872) and Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co (1883) ran different routes, rather than engage in head to head competition.

On Hawaiʻi Island, Mahukona, Kawaihae and Hilo were the Island’s major ports; Inter-Island served Kona ports. From Kailua, the steamer went south stopping at the Kona ports of Nāpoʻopoʻo, Hoʻokena, Hoʻopuloa, rounding South Point, touching at Honuʻapo and finally arriving at Punaluʻu, the terminus of the route. (From Punaluʻu, a 5-mile railroad took passengers to Pāhala, then coaches hauled the visitors to the volcano to site see.)

By 1890, Honuʻapo and Hīlea plantations became the property of Hutchinson Sugar Company, while Pāhala was owned by Hawaiian Agriculture. The mill at Hīlea was gone by 1907.

The concrete pier still visible at Honuʻapo Bay was constructed in 1910. The harbor at Honuʻapo continued operations until 1942. After that, sugar was trucked to Hilo for off-island shipment.

In 1928, the plantation camps of the Hutchinson Sugar Plantation were torn down and the residents were moved to Nā‘ālehu.) The Honuʻapo mill was shut down in 1973 and sugar plantation activities in Kaʻū were then centered at the Pāhala plantation; in 1996, the Pāhala plantation ceased operation marking the end of the sugar plantation era in Kaʻū. (Lots of information here from Rechtman and Haun.)

When I was at DLNR, we partnered with the community, County, NOAA (CELCP) and Trust for Public Land to purchase and preserve the historic and scenic Honuʻapo Estuary and coastal area along the Kaʻū coast adjoining Whittington Beach Park.

April 16, 2022 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Hilo Railroad Company – Hawaiian Consolidated Railway

The Treaty of Reciprocity (1875) between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market. Through the treaty and its amendments, the US obtained Pearl Harbor and Hawai‘i’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into US markets for their sugar.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.

Sugar cultivation exploded on the Big Island. As a means to transport sugar and other goods, railroading was introduced to the Islands in 1879.

On March 28, 1899, Dillingham received a charter to build the original eight miles of the Hilo Railroad that connected the Olaʻa sugar mill to Waiākea, that was soon to become the location of Hilo’s deep water port.

Rail line extensions continued. Extensions were soon built to Pāhoa, where the Pahoa Lumber Company was manufacturing ʻōhia and koa railroad ties for export to the Santa Fe Railroad.

Although not the first railway on the Big Island, the Hilo Railroad was arguably the most ambitious. The Olaʻa line was completed in 1900, immediately followed by a seventeen mile extension to Kapoho, home of the Puna Sugar Company plantation.

Immediately after that two branch lines were constructed (also to sugar plantations,) and then the railroad was extended north into Hilo itself.

All the sugar grown in East Hawaiʻi, in Puna and on the Hāmākua Coast, was transported by rail to Hilo Harbor, where it was loaded onto ships bound for the continent.

An early account stated that the rail line crossed over 12,000 feet in bridges, 211 water openings under the tracks, and individual steel spans up to 1,006 feet long and 230 feet in height.

Some of the most notable were those over Maulua and Honoliʻi gulches, the Wailuku River and Laupāhoehoe. Over 3,100 feet of tunnels were constructed, one of which, the Maulua Tunnel, was over half a mile in length.

While the main business of the railroad remained the transport of raw sugar and other products to and from the mills, it also provided passenger service.

A chiefly tourist line, branching from Olaʻa, was built inland 12.5 miles up the mountain to Glenwood where visitors to the Volcano House near Kilauea Volcano would then transfer to buses. Due to stiff competition from motor vehicles, the Glenwood extension was scaled back to Mountain View in 1932.

Between 1909 and 1913, the Hāmākua Division of the railroad was constructed to service the sugar mills north of Hilo. Unfortunately, the cost of building the Hāmākua extension essentially destroyed the Hilo Railroad, which was sold in 1916 and reorganized as the Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway.

Targeting tourists to augment local passenger and raw sugar transport, the Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway ran sightseeing specials under the name “Scenic Express.”

Not for the faint of heart, these trips included a stop on the trestles, where passengers disembarked to admire the outstanding scenery.

The Great Depression saw a decrease in business, but business picked up in the 1940s, when thousands of battle-weary troops packed the passenger cars en route to Camp Tarawa, in Waimea, to rest, recuperate and prepare for another campaign.

But the end was near for the Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway. Early in the morning of April 1, 1946, a massive tsunami struck Hawaiʻi. The railroad line between Hilo and Paʻauilo suffered massive damage; bridges collapsed, trestles tumbled and one engine was literally swept off the tracks.

The expensive option of rebuilding the railway was rejected. Hawaiʻi Consolidated offered the rights-of-way, tracks and remaining bridges, trestles and tunnels to the Territory of Hawaiʻi, but the offer was refused, and finally the company sold the entire works to the Gilmore Steel and Supply Company.

Shortly thereafter, realizing its error, the Territory bought it all back. Much of the current highway along the coast follows the route of the old railroad; five original railroad trestles have been converted into highway bridges. (This route averaged better than one bridge per mile over its 40-mile length.)

At the time of the tsunami, plantations were already phasing out rail in favor of trucking cane from the field to the mill. It was inevitable that trucking would also replace rail as the primary means of transporting sugar to the harbor. The tsunami accelerated that transition.

Most sugar from Hāmākua was trucked to Hilo Harbor, although the Hāmākua Sugar Company continued to use its offshore cable landing at Honokaʻa until 1948.

A few remnants of the railway are still visible. Hawaiʻi Consolidated’s yards were in the Waiākea district of Hilo, where the roundhouse still stands today, next to the county swimming pool on Kalanikoa Street.

In Laupāhoehoe, a concrete platform remains where Hula dancers once performed for tourists. And the Laupāhoehoe Train Museum is housed in the former home of Mr. Stanley, the superintendent of maintenance.

Today, the Laupāhoehoe Train Museum and Visitors Center keeps the memory of Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway alive. Although the Laupāhoehoe Train Museum is among the state’s smallest museums, it attracts an estimated 5,000 visitors a year. The admission fee is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors, and $2 for students. Special rates for tours are also offered.

The museum is open weekdays from 9 am to 4:30 pm and on weekends from 10 am to 2 pm. The address is 36-2377 Māmalahoa Highway, Laupāhoehoe, Hawaiʻi 96764. (Lots of information here for Laupāhoehoe Train Museum and Ian Birnie.)

December 3, 2021 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sugar, the Early Years

Sugar was a canoe crop; the early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully in the islands.

In pre-contact times, sugarcane was not processed as we know sugar today, but was used by chewing the juicy stalks. Its leaves were used for inside house thatching, or for outside (if pili grass wasn’t available.) The flower stalks of sugar cane were used to make a dart, sometimes used during the Makahiki games. (Canoe Crops)

The first written record of sugarcane in Hawaiʻi came from Captain James Cook, at the time he made initial contact with the Islands. On January 19, 1778, off Kauaʻi, he notes, “We saw no wood, but what was up in the interior part of the island, except a few trees about the villages; near which, also, we could observe several plantations of plantains and sugar-canes.” (Cook)

Cook notes that sugar was cultivated, “The potatoe fields, and spots of sugar-canes, or plantains, in the higher grounds, are planted with the same regularity; and always in some determinate figure; generally as a square or oblong”. (Cook)

It appears Cook was the first outsider to put sugarcane to use. One of his tools in his fight against scurvy (severe lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in your diet) was beer.

On December 7, 1778 he notes, “Having procured a quantity of sugar cane; and having, upon a trial, made but a few days before, found that a strong decoction of it produced a very palatable beer, I ordered some more to be brewed, for our general use.”

“A few hops, of which we had some on board, improved it much. It has the taste of new malt beer; and I believe no one will doubt of its being very wholesome. And yet my inconsiderate crew alleged that it was injurious to their health.” (Cook)

While the crew “would (not) even so much as taste it”, he “gave orders that no grog should be served … (he) and the officers, continued to make use of this sugarcane beer, whenever (they) could get materials for brewing it.” (Cook) Others later made rum from the sugarcane.

But beer and rum were not a typical sugar use; shortly after, the first reported processing of sugar was noted. “(I)n 1802 sugar was first made at these islands, by a native of China, on the island of Lanai.”

“He came here in one of the vessels trading for sandal wood, and brought a stone mill, and boilers, and after grinding off one small crop and making it into sugar, went back the next year with his fixtures, to China.” (Torbert; Polynesian, January 31, 1852)

As production grew, the early sugar ventures were either Hawaiian-owned or regulated by Hawaiian rulers. Stephen W Reynolds, crew on the New Hazard, kept a diary; his March 5, 1811 entry (presumably in Honolulu) notes:

“Sent a boat ashore after water. Went ashore in cutter with captain; saw the King’s cane mill and boiler, ship—a small one hauled up of about 175 tons, fort, etc.” (This suggests that King Kamehameha was making sugar in Honolulu in 1811.) (Cushing)

A friend of the King, Don Francisco de Paula Marin is also credited with early sugar processing. In Robert Crichton Wyllie manuscripts of Marin’s journals, Wyllie noted an entry concerning sugar, “On the 25th of February, 1819, he was engaged in making sugar.” There are eight additional entries that mention sugar or molasses. (Cushing)

In most instances, the Hawaiian-owned sugar processing was managed by either Chinese sugar boilers or American shopkeepers in rural districts. (MacLennan) Although sugar cane had grown in Hawaiʻi for many centuries, its commercial cultivation for the production of sugar did not occur until 1825.

In that year, John Wilkinson and Governor Boki started a plantation in upper Mānoa Valley. Within six months they had seven acres of cane growing, and by the time Wilkinson died, in September 1826, they had actually manufactured some sugar. The sugar mill was later converted into a distillery for rum, prompting Kaʻahumanu to have the cane fields destroyed around 1829. (Schmitt)

“The first successful sugarcane plantation was started at Kōloa, Kauaʻi in 1835. Its first harvest in 1837 produced 2 tons of raw sugar, which sold for $200. Other pioneers, predominantly from the United States, soon began growing sugarcane on the islands of Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu.” (HARC)

Shortly thereafter, King Kamehameha III, seeking to encourage commercial cultivation of sugar by native Hawaiians offered the “acre system,” giving “out small lots of land, from one to two acres, to individuals for the cultivation of cane.”

“When the cane is ripe, the King finds all the apparatus for manufacturing & when manufactured takes the half. Of his half one fifth is regarded as the tax due to the aupuni (government) & the remaining four fifths is his compensation for the manufacture. These cane cultivators are released from all other demands of every description on the part of chiefs.” (Armstrong (1839;) MacLennan)

About this time, the initial signs of commercial sugar are found on Maui, in Wailuku. In 1840, the King ordered an iron mill from the US, and it was erected by August. Hung & Co in 1841 advertised the sale of sugar and sugar syrup from its 150-acre plantation in Wailuku. More than likely, this was sugar from the King’s Mill. (MacLennan)

Early plantations were small and didn’t fare too well. Soon, most would come to realize that “sugar farming and sugar milling were essentially great-scale operations.” (Garvin)

Then, the King sought to expand sugar cultivation and production, as well as expand other agricultural ventures to support commercial agriculture in the Islands. In a speech to the Legislature in 1847, the King notes:

“I recommend to your most serious consideration, to devise means to promote the agriculture of the islands, and profitable industry among all classes of their inhabitants. It is my wish that my subjects should possess lands upon a secure title; enabling them to live in abundance and comfort, and to bring up their children free from the vices that prevail in the seaports.”

“What my native subjects are greatly in want of, to become farmers, is capital with which to buy cattle, fence in the land and cultivate it properly. I recommend you to consider the best means of inducing foreigners to furnish capital for carrying on agricultural operations, that thus the exports of the country may be increased …” (King Kamehameha III Speech to the Legislature, April 28, 1847; Archives)

A few things helped kick-start this vision – following finding gold in 1848, the California gold rush stimulated a small boom in commercial agriculture for the Islands – particularly in potatoes and sugar. However, by the end of the 1850s, the boomlet became a depression (California started to supply its own needs.)

A decade later, the American Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s. Hawaiian-grown sugar soon replaced much of this southern sugar through the duration of the conflict.

By the end of the war, over thirty extremely prosperous plantations were in operation and expanded to new levels previously unheard of before the war’s commencement.

Hawaiʻi’s industrial plantations began to emerge at this time (1860s;) they were further fueled by the Treaty of Reciprocity – 1875 between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market.

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

The industry came to maturity by the turn of the century; the industry peaked in the 1930s. Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar. (That plummeted to 492,000-tons in 1995; a majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s.) The image shows sugarcane.

April 23, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Meyer Sugar

At the age of twenty-four, Rudolph Wilhelm Meyer emigrated from Germany to Hawaiʻi where he arrived on January 20, 1850. At the time, Meyer listed his occupation as a surveyor.

His main purpose in leaving Germany was to join the “Gold Rush” to California in 1848, but he was delayed on a stopover in Sidney, Australia, and again in Tahiti, after which he landed at Lāhaina, Maui.

Meyer spoke German, French and English when he arrived in Hawaiʻi, and soon wrote and spoke fluent Hawaiian.

Meyer settled on Molokai. There, he met the Reverend Harvey Rexford Hitchcock I, who accepted him as a house guest at Kaluaʻaha, Molokai.

While living with Reverend Hitchcock, he met High Chiefess Kalama Waha, who later became his wife. Sometime later, he moved his family to Honolulu where he worked for Austin and Becker at an office located on Maunakea Street.

The Meyer family later moved back to Molokai and made their permanent residence at Kalaʻe. They eventually had eleven children, six boys and five girls.

He supported his family, in part, by holding a number of local commissions from the Royal Hawaiian government, but primarily from his diverse agricultural activity.

Ranching began on Molokai in the first half of the 19th-century when Kamehameha V set up a country estate on the island, part of which is now the Molokai Ranch. Rudolph Meyer, one of the first western farmers on Molokai, served as ranch manager for King Kamehameha V. (DLNR)

He planted at various times coffee, corn, wheat, oats, taro, potatoes, beets, cassava, peaches, mangoes, bananas and grapes. He was the first on Molokai to grow, produce and mill sugar and coffee commercially and he exported these to Honolulu and California. He also operated a large dairy from which he produced butter.

Meyer started to grow sugar at the time when the 1876 Reciprocity Treaty between the United States and Hawaiʻi removed the tariff on Hawaiian sugar sold in the United States.

Rather than the expansion and innovation that followed the Treaty, Meyer scaled his mill to satisfy the modest 50- ton annual production from his family’s 30-acres of sugar cane.

Constructed in the 1870s the RW Meyer Sugar Mill is one of the only sites in Hawaiʻi with sufficient material remains intact to demonstrate, fairly completely, a nineteenth-century process of sugar manufacture. The equipment included a mule-driven cane crusher, redwood evaporating pans and some copper clarifiers.

In the early-1880s, when the average investment in Hawaiʻi’s fifth-six sugar plantations exceeded $280,000, the Meyer family investment of $10,000 made their mill one of the smallest in Hawaiʻi.

Meyer adopted and followed mill practices more representative of the 1850s and the 1860s than the 1870s and 1880s. In the 1850s, animals powered the mill equipment; while he stuck with this method into the future, others replaced the animal power with steam and water.

The Meyer Sugar Mill easily accommodated the milling requirements of the family’s sugar lands and repaid the investment within a few years; however, during the 1880s the price paid for sugar steadily declined.

The Planters’ Monthly reported in July, 1887, that “Low prices of sugar still prevail…and many a man who once thought himself assured of reasonable wealth through sugar, now finds that it will not even yield him a competence…only running the sugar business on a large scale can it be made to pay.”

In 1892, CM Hyde reported that the Meyer Mill stopped producing sugar cane when “The low price of the product for the last few years … made it more than unprofitable to engage in sugar manufactured in a small way. Now the lands are given up to grazing.”

Meyer also served as the Superintendent of the isolated Kalawao settlement (Kalaupapa) (serving with Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope (now, both are Saints)) from 1866 till his death in 1897 (he continued to live with his family at the top of the cliffs, rather than on the Kalaupapa Peninsula.)

He also created one of the first trails used to travel between Kalaupapa Peninsula and the mauka lands. It was used to transport cattle and supplies down to Kalawao.

RW Meyer Ltd still owns property in the southwest corner of the Kalaupapa National Historical Park near the Kalaupapa Trailhead and maintains a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Park for trail access, maintenance and the planting of native plants. The Meyer Mill has been restored and is operating as a museum. Lots of information here is from NPS and rwmeyer-com.

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Meyer Sugar Mill Museum (Crusher)

Meyer Sugar Mill Museum

March 20, 2020 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Hilo Bay and Breakwater

Legendary sources indicate that Hilo (‘to braid’) was, among other things, renowned for its rain and fertility. Hilo is likely to have been one of the first Polynesian settlement areas on Hawai‘i Island; oral history and local legend indicate that Polynesians first settled Hilo Harbor around 1100 AD.

Early settlers would have found a protected bay, surrounded by fertile lands for agriculture, and well watered by regular rainfall and natural springs. Natural waterways and wetlands were modified to create fishponds and planting areas.

Early accounts of Hilo Bay describe a long black sand beach stretching along present day Bay Front from the Wailuku River to the Wailoa River. Coconut Island is just east of the Wailoa River, and Reed’s Bay and Kūhiō Bay are just east of Coconut Island.

“The romantic might easily imagine Hilo to be a very inviting location … on account of the beauty, grandeur, and wonders of nature, which are there so interesting. … even by the sober, pious mind, to be now a desirable residence, because the wonders of nature and the wonders of grace are there united and so distinguished.” (Hiram Bingham)

Hilo was a Royal Center for many of the early chiefs.

When Captain George Vancouver arrived at Hilo Bay in 1794, Kamehameha was living at Waiākea and preparing his fleet of war canoes for his coming conquest of the other Hawaiian Islands, which ultimately led to the consolidation of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Vancouver’s crew surveyed Hilo as a potential anchorage, but found the surf too problematic to effect a landing and declared the bay only marginally sufficient for anchorage.

Missionary William Ellis arrived in Hilo Harbor in 1823, when the main settlement there was called Waiākea. Christian missionaries continued to come to Hilo Harbor until the mid-19th Century. The missionaries were followed by trade ships and whalers that used the Hilo Harbor port.

Hilo Bay is partially protected by a reef located in 10 to 20 feet of water (later named Blonde Reef after Lord Byron’s vessel, HMS Blonde, which successfully anchored there in 1825.) (The Blonde had carried the bodies of Liholiho (who was born in Hilo) and Kamāmalu back from London, where they died from measles during a visit there.)

Between 1824 and 1848 Hilo became a significant center for foreign activities, primarily as a result of the establishment of religious mission stations by American missionaries.

By 1874, Hilo ranked as the second largest population center in the islands, and within a few years shortly thereafter Hilo with its fertile uplands, plentiful water supply, and good port became a major center for sugarcane production and export.

Passengers and cargo landed at Hilo in the surf along the beach until about 1863, when a wharf was constructed at the base of present day Waiānuenue Street.

At one time both cargo and passengers were hoisted in a basket-like sling out to a waiting row boat which took the goods or passengers to the waiting ship. If the weather was rough, landing took place on the beach.

The wooden wharf was replaced by an iron pile wharf in 1865, and was extended between 1889 and 1890. Raw sugar was brought by inter-island steamships from the Hāmākua coast to Hilo before being shipped overseas.

The northern side of the bay became a focal point for the community’s trade and commerce. During this time, Hilo was ranked as the third most frequented port for whaling vessels in need of repair and re-provisioning.

With its foundations in the missionary Hilo Boarding School, commercial sugarcane cultivation and sugar production became the central economic focus for the Hilo area lasting until the 1970s.

The Waiākea Mill Company, in operation between 1879 and 1948, with thousands of acres of cultivated fields, established its mill operation at Wailoa Pond.

The Reciprocity Treaty (1876) between the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and the US, along with the increase in commerce associated with the growing sugar industry and improvements in transportation in the Hilo area, prompted the decision that a harbor facility should be built on the calmer Waiākea side of Hilo Harbor. The government wharf at Waiākea was constructed at Kalauokukui Point between 1897 and 1899, and was upgraded in 1902.

Hilo Bay was still unprotected from high winds and storm surges that caused ships to break loose from their moorings and risk grounding.

In the late 19th century, the growing sugar industry in East Hawai’i demanded a better and more protected port, and a breakwater was constructed on Blonde Reef to shield ships from rough waters as they entered Hilo Harbor.

In 1908, construction began on a breakwater along the shallow reef, beginning at the shoreline east of Kūhīo Bay. The breakwater was completed in 1929 and extended roughly halfway across the bay. In 1912, contracts were awarded to construct Kūhiō Wharf, to dredge the approach to the new wharf, and to lay railroad track into the new harbor facility.

Work was completed at Kūhiō Wharf, Pier 1 in 1916. Pier 1 was a 1,400-foot long by 150-foot wide wharf with a wooden storage shed. By 1917, a mechanical conveyor for bagged sugar with derricks for loading ships, was constructed.

In 1923, Pier 2 was constructed just west of Pier 1. Additional dredging was conducted in Kūhiō Bay as part of the construction. By 1927, Pier 3 was added on the west side of Pier 2.

Between 1927 and 1928, the approach to Pier 3 was dredged and the pier was widened. In 1929, the 10,080-foot long rubble mound breakwater was completed.

Contrary to urban legend, the Hilo breakwater was built to dissipate general wave energy and reduce wave action in the protected bay, providing calm water within the bay and protection for mooring and operating in the bay; it was not built as a tsunami protection barrier for Hilo.

In fact, in 1946, Hilo was struck by a tsunami generated by an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands; it was struck again in 1960 by a tsunami generated by the great Chilean earthquake – both tsunami overtopped the breakwater and Hilo sustained significant damage, including to the breakwater.

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