Keawaʻula

Keawaʻula was believed to be part of the Kaʻena Point leina a ka ʻuhane (leaping places of souls into the spirit world;) at the northern part of the Waiʻanae coastline, it is at the western most point of Oʻahu.

Keawaʻula (red harbor or land) got the name from the squid that used to come into the area. When the squid would come into the ocean, from the shore it would appear as a reddish brown color. (ksbe)

Archaeologists turned up evidence of ancient agriculture in Keawaʻula when terraces indicating a former taro site were found at the bottom of the cliff. Several fishing shrines also existed here.  (WaiʻanaeHS)

Poha Cave is said to have existed here. This cave had streams of fresh water running through it that were carried to Kaieiewaho Channel between Oʻahu and Kauaʻi. It is said that ancient Hawaiians out fishing would dive down at certain places with large calabashes and come up with fresh water from these streams.  (WaiʻanaeHS)

Many years later, in 1859, when a house lot was being cleared in this area, a cave entrance covered by three large, flat stones was found. Freshwater was found inside, and people came from miles around to drink. This cave has since been named Keawaʻula Cave, but many believe it to be the fabled Poha Cave.  (WaiʻanaeHS)

Missionary Levi Chamberlain during a trip along the Waiʻanae and Waialua coastline sometime prior to 1849 traveled northwest by canoe from the village of Keawaʻula to a “cove,” presumably a canoe landing, at the southeastern side of Kaʻena Point.  (DLNR)

In “front of the little cove” was “a cave used by fishermen occasionally for a residence” which was about 30 feet high and had dimensions of 30 and 15 paces. The cave is described as being at “nearly the west point of the island” and south of the Waiʻanae and Waialua District boundary which dissects Kaʻena Point in an east-west direction.  (DLNR)

He traveled from the cave “a short distance over a very rough path along the shore and came to the mokuna (boundary) of the large divisions of the island Wainai and Waiarua.” This may be the cave called “Ke Ana Moe of Kaʻena” in 1954 which was said to be used by travelers from Mākua to Waialua. This cave may have been obscured by construction of the railway bed.  (DLNR)

Keawaʻula was known for its aku and ahi fishing grounds. The coastal fisheries were also noted as particularly productive when submerged, woven basket traps (hinaʻi) were used to catch kala and hinalea.  (DLNR)

When describing basket traps in general, Kamakau notes a particular pattern and size of basket trap that was made for kala fish and also states it to be “a land abounding in kala fishs”.  (DLNR)

Most of the government lands and private lands at Keawaʻula were leased for ranching during the second half of the 1800s and first half of the 1900s. A major portion of Keawaʻula became government land after Laʻamaikahiki relinquished “½” of the ahupuaʻa to the King during the 1848 Māhele and the King then designated it government land.  (DLNR)

When the privately-owned lands along the coast were acquired by the State of Hawaiʻi in the 1970s to create Kaʻena Point State Park, all were owned by ranching interests or by families with ranching interests in the area. The Keawaʻula section of the point was owned by Elizabeth Marks who inherited McCandless Ranch.

Keawaʻula is now generally referred to as Yokohama Bay.  Several stories suggest the later name.  One story suggests this was a favorite fishing spot for Japanese living on Oʻahu; they gave it the nickname Yokohama after the famous fishing village in Japan.  (ksbe)

When OR&L extended its rail line around Kaʻena Point, boats carried Japanese laborers, equipment and supplies to the site and freight back; on October 14, 1897, the place where the first Japanese laborers landed for this job is known to this day as "Yokohama Beach."  (ascehawaii)

Another story is that there was a Japanese man who ran the train station there. Because he was Japanese, people nicknamed him "Yokohama" – and thus the place carried it.  (WaiʻanaeHS)

The Bay is at the beginning of the Kaʻena Natural Area Reserve.  There is a lifeguard and restroom (only at the reserve entrance;) no facilities exist beyond that point. Under the Natural Area Reserve system, off-road driving is prohibited in the area to protect native plant and animal habitats.

The image shows Keawaʻula Bay.  In addition, I have added other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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John (Johnny) Henry Wilson

His story starts in 1820, when his great grandfather, Henry Blanchard (captain of the brig Thaddeus that brought the first company of Protestant missionaries to Hawaiʻi) married Koloa, a Molokaʻi chiefess.

Fast forward a couple generations and John “Johnny” Henry Wilson was born December 15, 1871 to Charles Burnett (CB) Wilson and Eveline (Townsend) Wilson.

His parents’ friends included the John and Lydia Dominus and Kalākaua.  “We had known Mr. Wilson quite well as a young man when he was courting his wife. My husband and myself had warmly favored his suit; and, with his wife, he naturally became a retainer of the household, and from time to time they took up their residence with us.”  (Liliʻuokalani)

During her imprisonment, Queen Liliʻuokalani was denied any visitors other than one lady in waiting (Mrs. Eveline Wilson – Johnny’s mother.)  Johnny would bring newspapers hidden in flowers from the Queen’s garden; reportedly, Liliʻuokalani’s famous song Kuʻu Pua I Paoakalani (written while imprisoned,) was dedicated to him (it speaks of the flowers at her Waikiki home, Paoakalani.).

Johnny Wilson attended Fort Street School and St. Alban's College (forerunners to the present McKinley and ʻIolani High Schools.)

He had a short stint working for Dillingham’s Oʻahu Railway and Land Company – there he had interest in being a civil engineer.  In 1891, with financial support from Liliʻuokalani, Wilson was in the first class of Stanford University – there, he was known as “Kanaka” Wilson.

Back in Hawaiʻi, in 1897, Johnny and fellow Stanford student Louis Whitehouse won the bid to expand and construct a ‘carriage road’ over the Pali.  Ground was broken on May 26, 1897 and the road was opened for carriages on January 19, 1898.  (Later, the Pali tunnels were completed and the old road abandoned - on August 1, 1961, Mrs. Jennie Wilson (his wife) led the dedication ceremonies.)

Wilson and Whitehouse also won the contract to extend Benjamin Dillingham’s railroad around Kaʻena Point.  To keep the bid low, they carried laborers, equipment and supplies to the site and freight back by boat - on October 14, 1897, the place where the first Japanese laborers landed for this job is known to this day as "Yokohama Beach."  (ascehawaii)

He and his wife, Jennie "Kini" Kapahu (previously a court dancer) toured the continent in 1900 with their Hawaiian Village hula troupe.  (Kini Kapahu claimed that she was the ‘first girl to leave Hawai‘i to go as a dancer in the mainland’.)

Wilson got involved with politics and is credited as being the most important Democrat in the first half of 20th-century Hawaiʻi; his name is used with Jack Burns in the party movement.  He was in a meeting on April 30, 1900 that organized the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi.

His initial political campaign in 1918 met with failure.  Mayor Joe Fern, Honolulu’s first Mayor, appointed his good friend Wilson as road supervisor for the Honolulu district.  Later, Wilson succeeded Fern as Mayor, following the illness and death of Fern.

Fern died on February 20, 1920; the Honolulu Board of Supervisors voted in Wilson on February 25, and he was sworn in as Mayor on February 29.  He would serve three stints as mayor: 1920 to 1927, 1929 to 1931 and 1946 to 1954.  (From 1941 to 1946, he was Director of Public Works.)

Honolulu Hale was an idea started by Joseph J Fern, but he died before it came to fruition.  Mayor Wilson carried on Fern’s dream; Honolulu Hale was finally completed in 1928.

Wilson foresaw the growth on the windward side and excavation commenced on January 8, 1954 on the “Kalihi Tunnel.”  Near the end of May 1954 tunnel excavation transitioned from rock to “earth” - in the summer of 1954, several tunnel collapses and surface sinkholes subsequently led to a large collapse on August 14 that killed five construction workers.

Construction ceased while they considered alternative methods of completion.  Tunnel excavation restarted in February 1956 and the first half-mile tunnel was open to two-way traffic in 1958; both tunnels were fully operational by November 1960.

Initially known as the ‘Kalihi Tunnel,’ and often called the Likelike Tunnels, they are named in honor of John H Wilson.  (1998 brought the completion of H-3 (and the Tetsuo Harano Tunnels – named after a longtime state highways administrator.))

In addition to the John H Wilson Tunnels, the John H Wilson Elementary School on Kilauea Avenue and the adjoining Wilson Playground at Papakōlea in Waiʻalae Nui Valley are named for Wilson.

Johnny Wilson passed away on July 2, 1956 at the age of 84.

The image shows a picture of President Truman, Admiral Arthur Radford and Mayor Johnny Wilson (star-bulletin.)  In addition, I have added other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Merchant Street Historic District, Honolulu

Once the main street of the financial and governmental functions in the city, Merchant Street was Honolulu's earliest commercial center.  Dating from 1854, these buildings help tell the story of the growth and development of Honolulu's professional and business community.

The variety of architectural styles depict the changing attitudes and living patterns during the emergence of Honolulu as a major city.

Melchers (1854)
The oldest commercial building in Honolulu, erected in 1854, is Melchers Building at 51 Merchant Street, built for the retail firm of Melchers and Reiner. Its original coral stone walls are no longer visible under its layers of stucco and paint, and it now houses city government offices, not private businesses.

Kamehameha V Post Office (1871)
The Kingdom of Hawai‘i instituted a postal system in 1851, issuing 5 and 13 cent stamps for letters and a 2 cent stamp for papers. Operated as a private concession for many years, the postal service expanded its work in the 1860s. David Kalākaua, later Hawaii’s monarch, ran the service from 1862 to 1865. The Kamehameha V Post Office at the corner of Merchant and Bethel Streets was the first building in Hawaiʻi to be constructed entirely of precast concrete blocks reinforced with iron bars. It was built by JG Osborne in 1871 and the success of this new method was replicated on a much grander scale the next year in the royal palace, Aliʻiōlani Hale. In 1900, the old Post Office became a unit of the U.S. Postal System.

Bishop Bank (1878)
Charles Reed Bishop moved to Honolulu in 1846; married Bernice Pauahi, in 1850; and Bishop started the first bank in Hawaiʻi, the Bishop & Co. Bank in 1858, The Bishop Bank Building at 63 Merchant Street was the earliest of the Italianate (or Renaissance Revival) structures on the street, built in 1878 and designed by Thomas J. Baker (one of the architects of ʻIolani Palace.)  In 1925, Bishop Bank moved to much larger quarters along "Bankers Row" on Bishop Street, and later changed its name to First Hawaiian Bank, now the largest in the state. The building, now known as the Harriet Bouslog Building, houses the offices of the Harriet Bouslog Labor Scholarship Fund and the Bouslog/Sawyer Trusts.

The Friend Building (1887 and 1900)
This site was the approximate location of the Oʻahu Bethel Church established in 1837. Reverend Samuel C. Damon (1815-1885) founded the English-language paper 'The Friend' in 1843 and ran the paper from this earlier site of the Seamen’s Bethel Church until his death in 1885. The Chinatown fire of 1886 destroyed the original Seaman’s Bethel building. In 1887, builder George Lucas, erected a single, two-story brick building on the makai (ocean) side of this double parcel to house The Friend and other papers, both English language and Hawaiian, printed by the Press Publishing Company.

Royal Saloon (1890)
In 1862, the Hawaiian Government officially permitted the sale of “ardent spirits” after many years of typically unheeded suppression. An establishment selling alcohol to the many visiting sailors was located on this approximate site as early as 1873. The bar was only one of scores of similar establishments in Honolulu’s harbor area during the nineteenth century.  In 1890, local barkeeper and investor Walter C. Peacock built and probably designed the Royal Saloon, one year after the widening of Merchant Street.

TR Foster Building (1891)
Thomas R. Foster began his company, Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, in 1878.  The TR Foster Building at 902 Nuʻuanu Avenue was built as his headquarters in 1891. In 1880, Foster had purchased the estate of the renowned botanist William Hillebrand (1821–1886), which was bequeathed to the city as Foster Botanical Garden at the death of his wife, Mary E. Foster, in 1930.  (When airplanes came to the Hawaiian Islands, the Inter-Island Navigation Company founded a subsidiary, Inter-Island Airways. In 1941, Inter-Island changed its name to Hawaiian Airlines and discontinued its steam boat service in 1947.)

Bishop Estate Building (1896)
In 1896, the Bishop Estate purchased the property and built the current building. Bishop Estate offices remained at this location until 1918, when the trust built another building close by on Kaʻahumanu Avenue.  The Bishop Estate Building at 71 Merchant Street was designed by architects Clinton Briggs Ripley and his junior partner, CW Dickey.  It initially housed the executive offices of not only the Bishop Estate, but also the Charles Reed Bishop Trust and the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. Constructed of dark lava from the Estate's own quarries, its notable features include arches above the lower door and window frames, four rough stone pilasters on the upper level, and a corniced parapet along the roofline.  (The original Kamehameha School for Boys opened in 1887 on a site currently occupied by Bishop Museum. The girls' school opened in 1894 nearby. By 1955, both schools moved to Kapālama Heights.)

Stangenwald Building (1901)
At six stories, the Stangenwald building was considered Hawaii's first skyscraper and one of the most prestigious addresses in Honolulu.  Designed by noted architect Charles William Dickey, construction of the steel-frame and brick building began in 1900 and the building was completed in 1901.  This building is of the most modern style of fire-proof architecture, designed with completeness of office conveniences equal to that of any city."  Honolulu's business community seemed to agree, for its prestigious address was claimed by several of Honolulu's most prominent company names: The Henry Waterhouse Trust Company, B F Dillingham, Castle and Cooke, Alexander & Baldwin and C Brewer Companies.  The Stangenwald remained the tallest structure until 1950, when the seven-story Edgewater Hotel in Waikīkī took over that title.

Judd Building (1898)
Dr. Gerrit P. Judd (1803-1873), a Protestant missionary who arrived in Hawai‘i in 1826, purchased the lot at the corner of Merchant and Fort Streets in 1861.  The Judd Building, designed by Oliver G. Traphagen, boasted Hawaii's first passenger elevator when it opened in 1898. The building was the first home for the newly formed Bank of Hawaii, which remained on the ground floor until 1927, when the bank took over new premises on Bishop Street.  A fifth floor was added on top in the 1920s.  The name commemorates Dr. Gerrit P. Judd, who became a close advisor to Kamehameha III and served as a minister in government of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i. He was a central figure in the creation of Hawai‘i’s constitution and helped to negotiate the return of Hawaiian sovereignty from Great Britain in 1843.

Yokohama Specie Bank (1909)
Overseas branches of the Yokohama Specie Bank (est. 1880) were chartered to act as agents of Imperial Japan. The Honolulu branch was the first successful Japanese bank in Hawaiʻi. The building at 36 Merchant Street dates from 1909 and was designed by one of Honolulu's most prolific architects, Henry Livingston Kerr, who considered it not just his own finest work, but the finest in the city at the time. The brick and steel structure is L-shaped, with a corner entrance and a courtyard in back. The bank purchased this property, previously occupied by the 1855 Sailor’s Home, in 1907. During its operation, the bank set aside separate reception areas for Japanese-speaking, Chinese-speaking and English-speaking customers.

Honolulu Police Station (1931)
With one of the earliest police forces in the world, dating to 1834 and the reign of Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli), the Kingdom of Hawaii had an earlier police station on King Street.  The old Honolulu Police Station at 842 Bethel Street occupies the whole block of Merchant Street between Bethel Street and Nuʻuanu Avenue. Built in 1931, it replaced an earlier brick building on the same site that dated from 1885 (the new structure is also known as the Walter Murray Gibson Building.)  At that time, the government also created a new Bethel Street extension, which linked Merchant Street to Queen Street.  Architect Louis Davis designed it in a Spanish Mission Revival style that matches very well that of the newly built city hall, Honolulu Hale (1929.) It served as the headquarters of the Honolulu Police Department until the latter moved to the old Sears building in Pawaʻa in 1967. It was renovated in the 1980s and now houses other city offices.

The image shows Merchant Street in 1885 looking toward Waikiki; Kamehameha V Post Office in left foreground, right rear Bishop Bank. I have added more images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook page.

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© 2012 Hoʻokuleana LLC