Episodes from Noboru Miyake’s Early Years
Born and raised on a 20-acre rice farm on land his parents leased deep within Waimea Valley, Kauai, far beyond the present swinging bridge, Noboru Miyake (1896-1988) would become the first person of Japanese ancestry to hold public office in Hawaii, when voters elected him to the Kauai Board of Supervisors in 1930.
Hanamaulu School Principal Carlotta Stewart Lai
Hanamaulu School Principal Carlotta Stewart Lai (1881-1952) — one of the first African American women to make their home in Hawaii, and Hawaii’s first African American school principal — was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of African American clergyman, attorney and civil rights leader Thomas McCants Stewart and Charlotte Harris Stewart.
Kamehameha’s failed invasions of Kauai
In 1796, Kamehameha I, then the conqueror of all the Hawaiian Islands, except Kauai and its satellite island of Niihau, launched his first invasion of Kauai from Waianae, Oahu.
Kokee Forest Ranger Joseph M. Souza Jr.
Born on Kauai, Joseph M. Souza Jr. (1913-1990) worked for Kauai Electric Co. and McBryde Sugar Co. before joining the Merchant Marine and serving in the Hawaii Army National Guard during World War II.
Willie ‘Golden Boy’ Duarte of Duarte’s U-Drive & Tours
Willie Duarte (1921-2007) started Duarte’s U-Drive & Tours on Kauai in the early 1950s, and by the time he sold the company and Orchid Island Tours on the Big Island to Amfac in 1969, he’d expanded his operations and became such a financial success that he was known locally as Willie “Golden Boy” Duarte, the U-Drive king of Kauai.
Willa Shell, the heroine of the 1946 tidal wave
On Monday, April 1, 1946, two powerful tidal waves hit Kauai beginning about 6:30 a.m., and in their wake, 14 people died, three were missing, presumed dead, and seven were hospitalized for injuries.
Lorraine Fountain was KTOH secretary
Born in Nawiliwili, Lorraine Fountain (1918-1999) was the daughter of Kauai police officer and commercial fisherman Edward Fountain and longtime Lihue schoolteacher Eva Fountain, and her brother, Edward, became a counselor at Kauai High School.
Recalling the Napali Milolii expedition of 1953
In 1952, Kauai forest ranger Joseph M. Souza, along with Ruth Knudsen Hanner and Isabel Fayé, decided to create a visitor center and natural history museum at Kokee.
Kauai Pineapple Co. in Lawai closes
The Kauai Pineapple Co. of Lawai, also known as Kauai Pine, was formed in 1906 as Kauai Fruit & Land Company with the backing of McBryde Sugar Co.
John Manaia Nawela and the Shark Akua
On a spring morning in 1885, Native Hawaiian John Manaia Nawela (1852-1940) was a sailor in Hilo Harbor aboard the schooner Pohoiki, which was being loaded by lighters with a cargo of ohia railroad ties bound for Honolulu.
Kahuna Morrnah Simeona’s exorcism at Lihue Dairy
In February 1946, Alan Fayé Sr., the manager of the Fayé family’s Waimea Sugar Co. and Waimea Dairy, was considering the purchase of 70 Holstein cows and bulls from Lihue Dairy, then managed by Caleb Burns, also the manager of Lihue Plantation.
Valdemar Knudsen’s Waiawa Vineyard
Kauai sugar pioneer and rancher Valdemar Knudsen (1819–1898) once held a 30-year lease on Hawaiian Crown Lands encompassing over 100,000 acres, which stretched westward from the Waimea River, across the plains of Kekaha and Mana, beyond Polihale as far as Nualolo Valley along the Napali Coast, and inland from the sea into the mountains of Kokee, all of which was home to several hundred Hawaiians.
Kaumualii wanted a huge diamond
In old Hawaii, the fragrant wood of the iliahi tree, called sandalwood, was merely burned as firewood or mixed with coconut oil to perfume kapa.
Carnation Masterpiece Rag Apple and the Lihue Plantation Dairy
In 1933, when Caleb Burns became manager of Lihue Plantation, he began building up the plantation’s dairy to an exceptionally high standard.
Hawaiian Canneries Co. of Kapaa closes
Hawaiian Canneries Co., which cultivated pineapple on 3,400 acres scattered over 35 miles from Hanamaulu to Hanalei, and processed and canned its pineapple at Kapaa canneries, now the site of Pono Kai Resort, shut down in 1962 after being in business for nearly 50 years.
Gloria Rapozo recalls baking Portuguese bread
In July 1973, Gloria Rapozo of Hanamaulu Camp reminisced about baking Portuguese bread in a brick oven, which was still standing within a splintered shed in the camp, but was then unusable.
Kauai Governor Paul Puhiula Kanoa
Paul Puhiula Kanoa (1832-1895), Kauai’s governor from 1881 to 1886 during the reign of King David Kalakaua, was an alii — his parents being Kaaikaulehelehe and Kapau, and his hanai father, with whom he is sometimes mistaken for, was Paulo Kanoa, the governor of Kauai from 1846 to 1877.
1946 Sakada Napoleon Comisap
When the Japanese Army invaded the Philippines in December 1941, Napoleon Comisap (1916-2000) – then residing in Laoag City with his wife, Dionisia, and infant daughter, Esmeralda – was called up by the 3rdBattalion, 13thInfantry Regiment, Philippine Army.
A History of Kauai’s Halfway Bridge
Long ago on Kauai, when Native Hawaiians travelled along a trail that once crossed Huleia Stream where Halfway Bridge was later erected, they would stop before wading across to leave an offering they believed would ensure their safe passage into the domain of another demigod.
Six 100th Battalion soldiers return home to Kauai during World War II
In the accompanying picture are six Kauai soldiers of the Army’s 100th Infantry Battalion on leave in Hawaii following 18 months of combat in Italy.