HAWAII NATURE NOTES
THE PUBLICATION OF THE
NATURALIST DIVISION, HAWAII NATIONAL PARK
AND THE HAWAII NATURAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION

Development

Development of the park began taking shape before its establishment, more particularly in the way of access development. Through Thurston's initiative, local prisoners in 1911 began building the road from the Volcano House to Halemaumau by way of Kilauea Iki. The prisoners were camped at the site of the existing Old Summer Camp. They also built a trail along the present Chain of Craters Road as far as the Devil's Throat. For many years this access was called Cockett's Trail, after the name of the man who supervised its construction. The craters along the chain—some of them—had already been named by the time of Wilkes' exploration of the region in 1840.

While the prisoners were camped at the Old Summer Camp, they reconstructed the trail from the Volcano House across the floor of Kilauea Crater to Halemaumau. This trail years later came to be called "The World's Weirdest Walk" by Superintendent Boles. It appeared on a map for the first time in 1888, when Frank S. Dodge showed it, although it had probably existed since before the time of Ellis' visit. Malden's map of 1825 did not record it; neither did the 1841 map compiled by Wilkes, nor the Rev. Titus Coan's drawing of 1844, nor C. S. Lyman's map of 1846, nor Brigham's of 1865, nor Lydgate's of 1874.

Operating out of the existing Namakanipaio Campground area, where they lived in tents, the prisoners in 1915 constructed the through road to Kau. The site is often identified today as the Old Prison Camp.

The Technology Station, the first scientific observatory in the Land of Pele, was constructed in 1911 (Courtesy Hawaiian Volcano Observatory).

Out of the research begun in the summer of 1911 by Perret and Shepherd, the first scientific laboratory in the Land of Pele came into being, consisting of a crude wooden shack constructed on the edge of Halemaumau that year by Perret, who called it the Technology Station. The next year saw the construction by Jaggar of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which he located on the site of the existing Volcano House. The concrete vault of the observatory Jaggar called the Whitney Laboratory of Seismology, after Edward and Caroline Whitney, whose estate subscribed $25,000 for research into the science of volcanoes. The original vault housing the seismograph instruments continues in use, the new Volcano House having been constructed over it.

Thurston conceived the idea in 1915 of developing a trail that would link Kilauea with Mauna Loa. To promote this project, he entertained the county supervisors, the publicity committee of the Hilo Board of Trade, and others at a luncheon in Hilo that year and outlined his ideas for such a trail. At the same time, he suggested the construction of public shelters at Red Hill and the Mauna Loa summit and presented the building plans which he personally prepared. One of the supervisors was so enthusiastic over Thurston's proposal that he pledged one month's salary to further it. Before the year was out, the trail had been completed to Red Hill and a shelter constructed at that point on a site selected by Thurston. From Red Hill to the summit of Mauna Loa, the route was identified only with ahus (stone markers). The trail alignment was laid out by Thurston and a Territorial engineer, and the work was done by a company of 25th Infantry soldiers, who were assigned to the job by the Army through Thurston's initiative.

The following year, the enterprising Thurston proposed the establishment of a military camp at Kilauea which would serve as a maneuvering ground for the Hawaii National Guard and as a recreation center for members of the regular Army stationed in the Territory. Through Thurston's endeavors, $24,000 was raised by public subscription for the construction of buildings and other improvements, and by the fall of 1916 the first complement of soldiers arrived to occupy Kilauea Military Camp. The camp was managed by a board of trustees comprised of Thurston and four others until the Army took over their interest in 1921. The 50-acre camp tract, which was leased by the trustees from the Bishop Estate for a nominal annual rental, was shared by the Army and Navy, each of which maintained individual camps for a time until merged into one. When the twenty-year lease expired, the Park Service, which assumed the interest in the original lease, renewed it for a term extending until 1956. The camp underwent extensive improvement and expansion during World War II, and for some of the time a part of it was used to house prisoners of war.

With the unification of the Armed Forces, the operation has become a joint one between the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Of this arrangement, a former executive officer, an Air Force captain, smartly sallied: "Here at Kilauea Military Camp, unification really works. The Navy runs the mess (cafeteria) and makes the mess; the Air Force does all the work; and the Army takes all the credit." Regardless of the captain's witty appraisal, the well-appointed, well-managed camp continues to be used extensively by members of the Armed Forces stationed in Hawaii and their dependents. Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin W. Rushton is commanding officer of the camp at this writing. A reservist who was called back into active military duty following the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, the South Carolinian is a high school coach in civilian life. On the night of June 27, 1952, as he and his wife were leaving the camp's recreation lodge after a function, he noticed a bright glow in the sky to the south. Not realizing that Halemaumau had erupted, he turned to his wife and said: "Ah'd reckon Mistah Oberhansley's got himself a mighty big forest fire on his hands."

In 1916, Thurston came out with still another idea, that of building a road to connect Kilauea with Mauna Loa. He envisioned visitors surfing at Waikiki one morning and skiing on the slopes of Mauna Loa twenty-four hours later. During his visit to Hawaii in 1919. Director Stephen T. Mather endorsed Thurston's proposed road strongly. Superintendent Boles thought highly of the idea also, and in 1925 a survey of the alignment was made under the direction of Frank A. Kittredge, a Park Service engineer. Until he passed away, Thurston tried unceasingly to make the Mauna Loa summit accessible by road from Kilauea, but the Park Service consistently turned down the project for several reasons, primary among them being the tremendously high construction and maintenance costs involved. Sparked by the Hilo Lions Club, the Territorial Department of Institutions in the winter of 1949 began the construction of a road to the Mauna Loa summit from the Kulani side of the mountain, outside of the park. The road constituted a rough jeep trail that could be negotiated in four-wheel drive vehicles only at the end of 1952, but it will ultimately sport a cinder surface. When completed, the upper six and one-half miles of the road will be located within the park. A corollary to the new road was the installation by the United States Weather Bureau of a meteorological observatory on the top of the lofty mountain in 1951. This installation, first proposed by the First Pacific Science Congress in 1920, was sanctioned by the Park Service as a means of furthering research in meteorology.

The construction of the park's first office building was undertaken by Superintendent Boles, who managed to save $1,500 for the job out of his meager 1923 appropriation. He could not find a contractor who would do the job for less than $3.000, whereupon Boles undertook the task himself with his little crew and some outside carpenters he hired and put up the three-room frame building at a cost of $1,470. Congressman John E. Raker, of California, a strong and influential friend of the Park Service on Capitol Hill, was a visitor in the park at the time Boles under took the construction of his administration building, and the Congressman turned over the first shovelful of earth and then went on to assist with the excavation. The structure was located at the site of the subsequent administration building (now the Volcano House Annex). Boles designed the heating system for the office himself, utilizing steam from an adjoining steam crack. Congressman Charles Linthicum, of Maryland, opened the valve that let the first steam into the new building. Boles was proud of his building but more proud still of the heating system he designed for it. Of it he reported to his chief: "Being a Department of the Interior structure, it is quite proper that we should obtain heat from the Interior Department of the Earth. The 'Gentleman with Horns' will be the fireman but will not be shown on the payroll."

In the spring of 1924, Boles' road equipment consisted of two wheelbarrows and some picks and shovels, and he was hard put to it to keep his fourteen miles of roads in shape, particularly that section of the Mamalahoa Highway traversing the park. This road had been surfaced by the county back in 1918, but the county no longer had the responsibility of maintaining it and Boles' two wheelbarrows could not keep up with the repairs. To add insult to injury, the highways approaching the park were being improved, making the park road look even worse. Boles went to the county officials and borrowed an asphalt heater, a truck, and some other equipment and bought from them—"at cost," he reported to his chief—some asphalt with which he fixed his road. The superintendent was not to be outdone.

Until the Government provided a house for him in 1926, Boles lived in a cottage he rented from the Volcano House. This cottage also doubled as Boles' office until 1923. The frame office-residence building had been constructed in 1892 and sported a neat picket fence around it and a flag pole. The building is in use today as an employee's residence.

Superintendent Boles' new residence was placed on the rim of Kilauea, at a spot between the existing Volcano House and Aloha Point. The location commands a magnificent view of the crater, and the hospitable Boles placed "Welcome" signs at the ends of the trails near the house to encourage visitors to come on the grounds and look at the view. A rock hurled out of Halemaumau during the 1924 steam explosions of the volcano constituted the cornerstone of the new building, the stone having been selected by the then Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite Masonry, John Henry Cowles, of Washington, D. C. Stones for the fire place for the new residence had been selected in 1923 by Congressman Raker.

The year 1927 brought many developments in the park, first among them the near-final stages of construction of the Chain of Craters Road. This was also the year that the Summer Camp, which featured twelve cottages and a central assembly hall, was opened for business by the Kilauea Volcano House Company, Ltd. The Sulphur Banks Road was reconstructed to replace the hole-laden auto trail, and the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association, which through Jaggar since 1915 had decried the lack of a museum, constructed such a building at Uwekahuna Bluff out of funds raised by Jaggar through public subscription. The Secretary of the Interior, Hubert Work, Director Mather, and Governor Wallace R. Farrington, who took a keen interest in the park, all took part in the dedication of the first park museum with Jaggar. After dedicating the building, the Secretary exploded the charge of powder that initiated work on the triangle portal of the Chain of Craters Road. And after that, he became the first unofficial member of the "World's Greatest Hole-in-One Club" by driving a golf ball into Halemaumau, a fad which was to continue for a number of years.

Hui O Pele (Society of Pele) made its first donation for park improvements in 1927, and the existing shelter at the beginning of the trail into the Thurston Lava Tube was constructed with it the same year. This unique Hui was organized in 1923 at the suggestion of Charles C. Moore, President of the San Francisco Pan Pacific International Exposition. Moore visited the Land of Pele the year before and was so impressed by the volcanic phenomena, the Pele legends, and other features that, in a 1922 address to the Honolulu Ad Club, he suggested the formation of an organization that would perpetuate the name and tradition of the volcano goddess through the grant of membership certificates to persons who visited Pele's fiery home. Moore contributed $100 to begin the organization, and through the interest of various Honolulans it was formed the next year. The Honolulu Ad Club spent over $2,000 in preparing membership certificates and pins, the first of which were issued to Moore, President Warren G. Harding. Thurston Jaggar, and Boles, in that order. By the spring of 1924, Hui O Pele had members from every country in the world but two, Turkestan and Abyssinia.

All of the organization's funds are derived through the sale of one dollar membership certificates and subscribed to the park for the improvement of visitors' facilities. Members now number close to 40,000 and represent every state in the Union and every country in the world. Through the years, the non-profit society has been kept alive through the devoted interest in the Land of Pele of various individuals, including George T. Armitage, L. W. de Vis-Norton, George Mellen, Charles R. Frazier, Mrs. Robert E. White, Mrs. Charles T. Wilder, Riley H. Allen, Harry P. Field, Raymond Coll, Sr., and others. The Governor of the Territory of Hawaii is the traditional kiaaina (governor) of the society, and the superintendent of the park the kuhina nui (premier).

Most notable among the many donations made by Hui O Pele is the $13,500 subscribed for the development of the new Hawaii National Park Museum, which was begun in the spring of 1950 under the direction of Paul C. Rockwood. of Mill Valley, California. The museum was dedicated as the Thomas A. Jaggar Memorial Museum on May 23, 1953—a fitting tribute to an illustrious scientist.

An organization known as the Hui Ahinahina (Silversword Society) and functioning along the lines of Hui O Pele was formed on the Island of Maui in 1951 at the suggestion of George T. Armitage, who for many years helped steer the affairs of the Pele society. The Maui organization has made a highly encouraging beginning under its first officers, S. Mizuha, President; Evelyn Tan, Secretary; and Judge Edna Jenkins, Treasurer. The improvement of visitors' facilities at Haleakala is the objective of the society.

The first forestry project in the park was undertaken in 1927 with the planting of seventy coconut and forty lauhala seedlings at Halape, along the park's shoreline. And the Mamalahoa Highway within the park was improved the same year to conform to modern road standards. The Land of Pele was coming into its own as a national park.

By the end of 1929, the park boasted twenty-five miles of roads and ninety miles of trails. The lion's share of appropriated funds continued to be diverted toward the development of the Kilauea Section, as Mather had directed years before, and the management of the Haleakala Section continued to be looked after by the enthusiastic Maui Chamber of Commerce and its interested members. Until 1929, when the Halemauu Trail was improved in the Maui section of the park, no appropriated funds had been expended there.

A new lecture hall (now the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory) was added in 1931 to the museum-exhibit building constructed in 1927 at Uwekahuna Bluff, and a road was constructed between there and the fire pit to replace the auto trail built the year the first museum went up. A trail was also constructed between the Haleakala Resthouse and the Halemauu Trail, and the ancient trails in the mammoth crater were rehabilitated. The 1930 Hilina Pali shelter was the starting point for a trail built westward the following year to Kipuka Pepeiau, around the Kamakaia Hills, past Mauna Iki, which Horace M. Albright, Field Assistant to Mather and subsequently his successor, named on his 1920 visit to the park, to Uwekahuna, a distance of twenty-two and one-half miles. The same year, K. Maehara built a photographic studio between the existing administration building and the Old Volcano House, becoming the second park concessioner. The 1923 frame office gave way in 1932 to an attractive administration building, and the next year funds were appropriated for constructing a modern, surfaced highway to the summit of Haleakala and for the Halemaumau-Uwekahuna-Bird Park Road. The Territory of Hawaii, with an appropriation of $300,000 furnished by its legislature, finished the road to the Haleakala boundary in 1933.

The depression-bound 1930's opened the Federal coffers, and liberal amounts of public works funds were made available for park development. Civilian Conservation Corps enrollee camps were established at Kilauea and Haleakala, and extensive work was accomplished, including construction and improvement of roads, trails, buildings, and utilities, installation of boundary fences, and numerous other projects. The long-neglected Haleakala Section saw the completion of a highway to the summit of the mountain and the construction of an observation station at the terminus of the road in 1935. The new road was opened and dedicated amidst much fanfare. The event, according to the Maui News, eclipsed anything which had been done before on the Valley Island. The ceremonies marking the opening and dedication of the road were broadcast to the mainland over the short-wave facilities of the National Broadcasting Company. With the completion of the road, the Park Service assumed active administrative control of the Haleakala Section of the park.

E. J. Walsh, then owner of Maui's Grand Hotel, began furnishing meals and other services for visitors at Haleakala in 1936, becoming the first concessioner in this section of the park. Robert G. von Tempsky, a strong Haleakala booster for many years, ventured into the concession business in that section of the park in 1947 when he opened the Haleakala Mountain Lodge on the site of the abandoned war-time Army base camp. His interest in the concession was purchased in 1949 by Lodges of Hawaii, Ltd., which continues to operate it.

From the bleak days of the depression until the Pearl Harbor attack, marked strides were made in the development of the park. But while the depression days had been days of plenty for the park, the war years were years of austerity. As funds diminished, so did Wingate's staff, and he and his small crew were unable to keep up with the deterioration that beset the park's physical plant. Roads developed holes and cracks, trails became overgrown and littered with limbs and trees—practically everything in the way of physical improvements demonstrated the toll the war years had taken when Oberhansley succeeded Wingate in 1946.

With precise planning and more liberal funds than had been available to his predecessor. Oberhansley laid out a program of rehabilitation that in a short time gave new life to park improvements, bringing them to a standard theretofore unmatched. One of Oberhansley's proudest achievements is the two million gallon water system he constructed in 1950, which concentrated the multiple Volcano House, residential, and other scattered systems into one. When Oberhansley arrived, the park had more water commissioners than the average county, for every building was served by an individual system comprising a redwood storage tank that was fed by rainwater from the adjoining building roof. There were times when some tanks ran dry and the park residents had to go aborrowing from their neighbors. And there were bathless days, too. Through some war-time Navy acquaintances stationed at Pearl Harbor, Oberhansley learned that the Navy was going to dispose of some surplus redwood storage tanks, and he immediately got on the trail of them and succeeded in obtaining them at no cost to the park. As a result, the park for the first time in its history no longer has to contend with threats of water shortages.

Shortly after Oberhansley entered on duty, he hired an Hawaiian, Samuel K. Kaneopua, as a park laborer. After he had been on the job a few days. Sam walked into the superintendent's office and told Oberhansley that the reason Halemaumau had not erupted since 1934 was because the volcano goddess was huhu (mad) over the fact that two pit toilets had been placed on Pele's ground. Sam claimed to be a direct descendant of the goddess, and he said he felt it his duty to have the pit toilets removed from the sacred area. Oberhansley decided the toilets were obtrusive anyway, and he had them removed, which pleased Sam greatly. But almost six years passed before the volcano erupted. One night, while the 1952 eruption was in progress, Oberhansley encountered Sam on the visitors' overlook at Halemaumau. He reminded the Hawaiian that, although he had removed the toilets it had taken Pele six years to produce an eruption. "Thassaright, boss," Sam said. "It take Pele a long time to get over being huhu. But I say she come back if you take out the haleliis and she come back, no?"

One of Oberhansley's favorite spots in the park is the spectacular Hilina Pali area, which commands magnificent views of the Kau and Puna coastline. He wanted desperately to make the area accessible to visitors by extending the road from Kipuka Nene to the Pali, a distance of three and one-half miles, but the red tape looked a bit thick for him to cut. For under the appropriation structure of the Park Service, funds are allocated separately for road construction and road maintenance, and the 1950 fiscal year budget did not make any provision for new construction.

By cutting corners, Oberhansley saved $6,000 from his road maintenance funds. He made assiduous study of the road construction and maintenance specifications in the hope of finding a loophole that would sustain him in the event that he should authorize—and someone should question—the construction job, but the specifications are clear cut and he found none. Knowing that such an opportunity to build a road to Hilina Pali would not arise again for a long time, he forgot about the specifications, threw caution to the winds, and issued an order for the construction job to begin.

All went well, but half-way through the project, Assistant Director Hillory A. Tolson and Chief of Development Thos. C. Vint, of the Washington Office, showed up to make a general inspection of the park. Oberhansley drove and hiked them all over the area but skirted Hilina Pali to avoid any questions about the unprogrammed job. When Tolson and Vint asked about Hilina Pali, the superintendent told them that the trip was a tortuous one and he preferred not to subject them to it, but the inspecting officials didn't want to miss a thing and Oberhansley agreed to take them out. The roadbed had been laid by this time, and there was no mistaking the existence of at least a rough road to the Pali.

On the day that he drove Tolson and Vint to the Pali, Oberhansley had the heavy equipment working on the road whisked out of sight so as to remove any semblance of construction, but left behind a truck and a couple of men working with handtools to suggest that the road was being maintained. The roadbed was extremely rough, and Oberhansley made up his mind to impress the visiting officials with the need for the road, should they question the work already showing. He drove them in a Jeep and gave them a ride the likes of which they had never had before. Tolson rode in front with Oberhansley and found the ride so bumpy that, in addition to fastening the safety belt around him, he hung onto the seat with one hand and the windshield frame with the other. Vint, riding in the back seat, just hung on and suggested frequently that the Jeep was the devil's own invention. "Ughs" and "unhs" comprised the major part of Tolson's and Vint's contributions to the conversation on the trip.

But the alert Tolson and Vint are not blind and they knew what Oberhansley was up to. Not wanting to dampen the superintendent's enthusiasm, undoubtedly feeling acutely the effects of the rough ride, and obviously impressed by the view from Hilina Pali, they said nothing to Oberhansley about the road, except that it could perhaps stand a little improvement. Taking this as a go-ahead, Oberhansley finished the job.

One of the most notable accomplishments during Oberhansley's tenure was the inception of the museum development program, which has been financed principally out of donated funds and funds that have been carefully saved out of other projects. When finished, the museum will constitute the finest of its kind in the Territory. Generous donations have been made to the project by Laura Vestal Kennedy and Guido and Emma Giacometti, of Hilo, and Mrs. David McHattie Forbes, of Kamuela, Hawaii.

The Park Service has planned a program of development for the future that will open many new vistas and experiences for visitors to the Land of Pele, including the construction of a parkway-like road from the new boundary near Kalapana to the vicinity of Warm Springs along the rugged and magnificent Puna Coast. This project was suggested in 1947 by Assistant Director Hillory A. Tolson on his first visit to Hawaii.