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History "Recorded" history began only about 200 years ago.
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| Tsunami | Sugar | The Ditch | |
| The Railroad | Liliʻuokalani | ||
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Outsiders brought ambition and enterprise. It did not always turn out well. Without some history we cannot understand what we're seeing. | |||
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Since white people first built a city on the site of Hilo, the spot has been smashed by tsunamis multitple times.
The biggest was in 1960, caused by the great Chile earthquake. Only somewhat less devastating was the tsunami of 1946. Experience has at last taught the inhabitants to back the city a bit farther from the sea. But if 1960 were repeated, most of Hilo would again be lost. | ||
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Initially brought to the islands by early Polynesians, the first successful commercial sugar plantation started in 1835. And, with it, Hawaii’s environmental, social and economic fabric changed. Hawaii's economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.
What encouraged the development of plantation centers? For one, the American settlement of California opened lucrative avenues of trade in the Pacific. In addition, the Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai'i to compete in a California market that paid elevated prices for sugar. The Pacific whaling trade collapsed after 1860, pushing Honolulu merchants into the sugar trade. About the same time, the closing of the Hawaiian mission left the previously supported missionaries in search of new means of income. The 1876 Treaty of Reciprocity between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai`i’s closest and major market. Through the treaty, the US received a station at Pearl Harbor and Hawaiʻi’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into US markets for their sugar. For nearly a century, agriculture was the Island's leading economic activity. It provided Hawai`i's major sources of employment, tax revenues, and new capital through exports of raw sugar and other farm products. | ||
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_sugar_2.jpg When I visited Hawaii in 1978, the sugar industry still existed. I recall passing miles of sugar plantations.  |
_sugar_1.jpg The cane fields were staffed by workers from all over the world. The largest foreign population was the Japanese, emigrating in the 19th centure to escape poverty and starvation in Japan.  |
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Completed in 1906, the 22.5 mile Kohala Ditch is the lifeline for agriculture in North Kohala.
Sugarcane requires a lot of water to grow. Pioneer sugar planters solved water shortages by diverting stream water and building irrigation systems that included aqueducts (the first in 1856), artesian wells (the first in 1879), and tunnels and mountain wells (the first in 1898). These irrigation systems enabled the planters to expand their sugar production. These irrigation systems were modeled largely after the elaborate and extensive diversion and ditches developed by the ancient Hawaiians. | ||
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_kohaladitch_2.jpg Waipio falls, before most of its water was diverted to The Ditch.  |
_kohaladitch_1.jpg Partial list of great irrigation ditches servicing the sugar industry on Hawaii.  |
_kohaladitch_3.jpg Building the Kohala Ditch.  |
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_kohaladitchflumin.jpg Fast forward to the present. Sugar plantations have long since vanished. "Flumin' the ditch" is a must-do adventure on Hawaii. What could better express the contrast: The unfathomable sacrifice by those who built it, segue to contemporary Americans' pursuit of thrill. In the museum I read that Jack London "flumed the ditch" early in the 20th century when it was a recipe for likely death.  |
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History of Hawaii Consolidated Railroad - Laupahoehoe Train Museum.
In 1876, the United States, through the Reciprocity Treaty, gave the Hawaiian Islands permission to export sugar, duty free and profits from the already flourishing sugar industry soared. Infrastructure to support the booming industry multiplied, and the Hilo Railroad was born. Although not the first railway on the Big Island, the Hilo Railroad was arguably the most ambitious, and through time gained the dubious worldwide distinction of being one of the most expensive railways ever built. It began when B.F. Dillingham, an agricultural entrepreneur from Honolulu, financed the laying of tracks between the port of Hilo and Olaa (now Keaau), to service his Olaa Sugar Mill. Extensions were soon built to Pahoa, where the Pahoa Lumber Company was manufacturing ohia and koa railroad ties for export to the Santa Fe Railroad. 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. Many locals rode the trains for trips to family in other towns,some students rode five days a week to classes in Hilo, and the railroad even offered late night runs to bring revelers home from special events in town. One trip offered by the railroad carried intrepid visitors most of the way to Kilauea Volcano with food and entertainment and a nights accomodation included. Visitors would travel from Hilo on rail, through Mountain View, but had to go the last eight miles by horse and wagon since the end of the rail line was in Glenwood. Between 1909 and 1913, the Hamakua Division of the railroad was constructed to service the sugar mills north of Hilo. Because of the rugged nature of the Hamakua Coast, the railway had to cross hundreds of streams and valleys. Dozens of steel trestles rose over 150 feet above the streams underneath them. Over 3,100 feet of tunnels were constructed, one of which, the Maulua Tunnel, was over half a mile in length. At three enormous gulches, a combination of tunnels and distinctive curved trestles enabled the trains to negotiate the daunting topography. Unfortunately, the cost of building the Hamakua extension essentially destroyed the Hilo Railroad, which was sold to bondholders in 1916, and reorganized as the Hawaii Consolidated Railway. | ||
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_maluagulchtrestle_1.jpg Malua Gultch  |
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...and The Great Māhele and how the Hawaiians lost the land.
Māhele was the Hawaiian land redistribution proposed by King Kamehameha III. The Great Māhele was one of the most important episodes of Hawaian history. While intended to provide secure title to Hawaiians, it would eventually end up separating many of them from their land, to the gain of "the big 5", the name given to a group of what started as sugarcane processing corporations. Lydia Lili'u Loloku Walania Kamakaʻeh (1838-1917) was the only queen regnant and the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiin Kingdom, ruling from 1891, until the overthrow of the Hawaiin Kingdom in 1893. The composer of "Aloha Oe'" and numerous other works, she wrote her autobiography "Hawaii's story by Hawaii's Queen" during her imprisonment following the overthrow. | ||
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