Stories by Hank Soboleski

ISLAND HISTORY: Kauai Champion Boxer Placido D. Valenciano’s Recollections

Placido D. Valenciano (1917-2012) of Makaweli, Kauai, fought in the ring on Kauai, Honolulu and the Big Island as an amateur from the ages of 16 to 22 during Kauai’s “Golden Age” of boxing in the 1920s and 1930s, was crowned the Kauai Junior Featherweight Boxing Champion in 1939, and compiled a career record of 31 wins, 15 by knockout, and 8 losses.

ISLAND HISTORY: Kauai boxing champion Placido Dias Valenciano

Kauai Junior Featherweight Boxing Champion Placido D. Valenciano (1917-2012) was born in Ilocos Norte, Philippines and immigrated to Hawaii with his parents Faustino and Patricia Valenciano, and his brother, Mariano, in 1928 aboard the ship “President Cleveland” and settled at Makaweli, Kauai.

ISLAND HISTORY: The wreck of the steamer C.R. Bishop off Kaua‘i

At around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 1894, the inter-island steamer C. R. Bishop, running at full speed of about 10 knots, was totally wrecked after striking rocks off shore of Kaua‘i just south of Hanama‘ulu Bay and approximately three miles north of Nawiliwili Harbor.

ISLAND HISTORY: Old-time Kaua‘i Judge Jacob Hardy

Jacob Hardy, for whom Hardy Street in downtown Lihu‘e is named, was born at Peabody, Massachusetts, in 1827, of English immigrant parents, and after graduating from Amherst College in 1849, he sailed to Hawai‘i on the advice of a physician who’d suggested a warmer climate would improve his poor health.

The ‘Hawaiian Legends’ of Kaua‘i’s William Hyde Rice

Born at Punahou, Oahu, the son of missionary parents William Harrison and Mary Sophia Hyde Rice, William Hyde Rice (1846-1924) was a rancher, the last governor of Kauai under Queen Liliuokalani, and the author of “Hawaiian Legends,” published in 1923 by the Bernice P. Bishop Museum.

Eric Knudsen, Kauai’s ‘Teller of Hawaiian Tales’

Rancher, sugar planter, lawyer and politician, and Kauai’s “Teller of Hawaiian Tales” Eric Alfred Knudsen (1872-1957) was born at Waiawa, Kauai, at that time the Knudsen family homesite about a mile west of Kekaha.

Acclaimed Kaua‘i artist Isami Doi

Born on O‘ahu, the son of Japanese immigrants who ran a general store, but raised in Kalaheo, Kaua‘i, Isami Doi (1903-1965) went on to become one of Hawai‘i’s most outstanding and beloved artists.

A brief history of Kauai’s Waita Reservoir

Waita Reservoir, with an area of 425 acres located on a site overlooking Koloa, Kauai, and bound on three sides by hills and a 28-foot-high dam on the fourth, is second in size in the State of Hawaii only to Halalii Lake on Niihau with its 841 acres of area.

Pioneer Kaua‘i sugar planter H.P. Fayé

Born and raised in Norway, H. P. (Hans Peter) Fayé (1859-1928) arrived in the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1880, and soon after leased land at Mana from his uncle, Valdemar Knudsen, and settled there.

The Hawaiian Sugar Company of Kaua‘i railroad

Hawaiian Sugar Co. (HSCo) of Makaweli, Kauai, aka Makaweli Plantation, was founded by representatives of the Scottish firm of Mirelees, Watson & Yaryan not long after the signing of the Treaty of Reciprocity of 1875 between the Hawaiian Kingdom and the United States.