ISLAND HISTORY: Kauai sugar pioneer George Norton Wilcox never married
George Norton Wilcox (1839-1933) was born in Hilo of missionary parents, was raised at Waioli, Kauai, and became the owner of Kauai’s Grove Farm Plantation. Wilcox also represented Kauai in the...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Valdemar L’Orange Knudsen and a peek at old Poipu
Born at Waiawa, Kauai, Valdemar L’Orange Knudsen (1910-1990) was the son of Cecilia L’Orange Knudsen and rancher and legislator Eric Knudsen, who gained fame as the “Teller of Hawaiian Tales” on the...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Kauai centenarian William Kuwalu was born on Niihau in 1849
William Kuwalu (1849-1953), the son of Waikaka and Kikaha, was born on Niihau on Jan. 26, 1849, raised and educated at Waimea, Kauai, where he later made his home, and was employed for many years by...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: A history of Grove Farm Museum’s sugar trains
To begin with, the Kauai sugar plantation railroad era began at Kilauea Sugar Plantation in 1881, and ended in 1960, the year Lihue Plantation completely switched over from trains to haul cane trucks....
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: A glimpse of Lihue in the ’50s &’60s by Ginger Soboleski
My wife, Ginger Beralas Soboleski, was born at Wilcox Hospital in 1949, the eldest daughter of Al Beralas, who’d emigrated from the Philippines in 1927 as a little boy, and Julie Esquirra Beralas, born...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Niihau owner Aylmer Robinson hosted Gov. Judd’s tour of...
By invitation of Aylmer Robinson (1888-1967) and his brother, Lester Robinson (1901-1969), the co-owners of Niihau, Territorial Gov. Lawrence M. Judd (1887-1968) visited Niihau on October 21, 1929....
View ArticleIsland History: McBryde Sugar Co. champion hapai ko man Platon Fermin
Recently, Kauai businessman, author, historian and former McBryde Sugar Co. field superintendent Keith Smith told me about champion hapai ko man Platon Fermin (1912-2012), whose hapai ko man job...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Masato (Mac) Kawamura, founder of Kauai’s M. Kawamura Farm...
Masato (Mac) Kawamura (1913-2001), the founder of M. Kawamura Farm Enterprises of Lihue, Kauai, was born in Lihue, the son of Japanese immigrants Sadazuchi and Ishi (Ishimoto) Kawamura, and attended...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Dr. George F. Straub, Straub Hospital founder and...
My wife Ginger’s recent stroke and the superb medical treatment she then received at Straub Hospital in Honolulu got me wondering about the man who founded that excellent hospital. Born in Germany, Dr....
View ArticleTGI newspaper editor Luther Timmons and ‘The Blount Report’
Newspaperman Luther Timmons (1874-1920) first came to Hawaii in 1893 as a correspondent for several Mainland newspapers. On board ship with him during his voyage to Hawaii, and upon his arrival at...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: The ancient Hawaiian sport of holua riding on Kauai
In his book “Kanuka of Kauai,” “Teller of Hawaiian Tales” Eric Knudsen (1872-1957) wrote about Umi, a legendary Hawaiian prince of Kauai, and his beloved sport of holua (sled) riding, and I quote: “He...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Lihue’s Santo Niño religious celebrations of the 1950s
My wife, Ginger Beralas Soboleski, born and raised on Kauai, told me about the Filipino Santo Niño (Holy Child) religious celebrations that occurred in Lihue Camp during the 1950s. Once a year in...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Old-time Kauai tour driver Joseph Lovell I
Old-time Kauai tour driver Joseph Lovell I (1901-1983) was born at Kilauea, Kauai, the son of Daniel and Eliza Kauaahaa I, graduated from Kauai High School. In the 1920s, he went to work driving...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: A personal look back at Aloha Airlines
My first Aloha Airlines flight occurred in May 1968, while I was on Oahu taking a 20-day paid leave from the Marine Corps, and sharing a rented studio apartment in a then-tranquil Waikiki with fellow...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Old-time kamaaina Martin O. Blackstad of Waimea, Kauai
In 1881, adventurous Norwegian Martin O. Blackstad arrived in Honolulu from Bremen, Germany, aboard H. Hackfeld & Co.’s schooner “Cedar,” to seek his fortune in the Hawaiian Islands, and settled at...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Keith Robinson and early Hawaiian farming practices
Keith Robinson, the co-owner of Niihau with his brother, Bruce, is an expert amateur botanist, unique in his field, who remains dedicated to successfully propagating and preserving — as no one else has...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Native Hawaiian Kauai educator Gabriel I
Kauai educator Gabriel I was born at Hanalei in 1909, the son of Joseph and Haleakala I, and resided at Nawiliwili for most of his life. His surname, I, was a truncation, adopted by his father, of his...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: The old Ota farm at Huleia, Kauai
Born at Hiroshima, Japan, Kauai master farmer Jinkuro Ota (1878-1962) had been farming at Huleia, Kauai, for 20 years when the photograph accompanying this story was taken in 1930. At that time, he and...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Plantation manager Benjamin Douglas Baldwin and the Baldwin...
Born at Kohala, Hawaii, Benjamin Douglas Baldwin (1867-1928) was, from 1903 until his death in 1928, the manager of Kauai’s Hawaiian Sugar Company, established in 1889, and also known as Makaweli...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: A history of the Anahola Hole in the Mountain
On Wednesday, April 15, 1981, the Hole in the Mountain, a natural geological formation created centuries ago in the narrow ridge of Mount Kalalea at Anahola, Kauai, vanished when a massive chunk of...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: The ‘Ha’aheo o Hawaii’ royal yacht exhibit at Kauai Museum
Built at Salem, Mass., in 1816, “Cleopatra’s Barge,” the first ocean-going luxury yacht built in the United States, sailed about the Atlantic and Pacific oceans until 1820, the year King Kamehameha II...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: The story of Liholiho’s archaic ipu paka (tobacco pipe) at...
Between 1995 and 2000, Paul Johnston of the Smithsonian Institution and his salvage team, while excavating the sunken wreck of the royal yacht “Ha’aheo o Hawaii” in Hanalei Bay, recovered many historic...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: The authentic Hawaiian ‘ahu‘ula (feathered capes) at the...
In Old Hawaii, ‘ahu‘ula (feathered capes) — royal garments meticulously crafted using thousands of colored feathers taken from native Hawaiian birds that were tied to a netted olona-fiber foundation —...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Hobey Goodale witnessed the shelling of Nawiliwili Harbor in...
On the night of Dec. 30, 1941, over three weeks after Pearl Harbor and other military installations on Oahu were attacked by Imperial Japanese aircraft on Dec. 7, Nawiliwili Harbor was shelled by...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Ancient Pihanakalani on the banks of the Wailua River
Pihanakalani is the locale on Kauai off Kuamoo Road, on the banks of the Wailua River, upon which a Hindu temple was built in 1973. Yet, in the distant past, it was originally settled by the Tahitian...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Eddie Fountain, Kauai’s best fisherman, and his ohana
Eddie Fountain (1893-1958), whose home once stood on Rice Street in Lihue, across from the present fire station, was Kauai’s examiner of driver’s license applicants in the Kauai Police Department. He...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Visiting the old Sinclair homestead at Kiekie, Niihau
During 1993, while employed by the USDA as an agricultural science technician engaged in insect surveys, I had the good fortune of visiting Niihau — with the permission of Niihau’s owners Bruce and...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: The historic banyan trees at Niumalu and Nawiliwili, Kauai
The historic Kanoa Banyan Tree, which still flourishes in Niumalu along the road to the Menehune Fishpond on what was once the property of Stanford Achi (1926-1995) and his wife, June Achi (1929-2012),...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: Detective Chang Apana, the real-life Charlie Chan and...
Honolulu police detective Chang Apana (1871-1933) was the real-life detective who inspired American novelist and playwright Earl Derr Biggers (1884-1933) to create the famous fictional police detective...
View ArticleISLAND HISTORY: The Menehunes and the killer shark of Donkey Beach, Kauai
Long ago, in legendary times, one of the favorite swimming spots of the Menehunes was Paliku Beach, also historically referred to as Homaikawaa Beach, but most commonly known for quite some time now as...
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