LIHU‘E — Not all the offices at the Historic County Building have been vacated while renovation work is being done. Though they looked for a larger space to move into during the months-long project, Kaua‘i Historical Society officials were unsuccessful
LIHU‘E — Not all the offices at the Historic County Building have been vacated while renovation work is being done.
Though they looked for a larger space to move into during the months-long project, Kaua‘i Historical Society officials were unsuccessful in finding alternative office space. They were subsequently given permission to remain in the building, said Mary Requilman, KHS executive director.
It has been a bit of an adventure, she said, noting three different times when their telephone line was accidentally cut (service was always promptly restored) and the time when she was planning a board meeting and the second-floor jack-hammering was so noisy she couldn’t hear the phone ring.
“We’ve been managing OK,” she said, adding that the contractors are accommodating to the historical society’s needs. “They’ve been very good, really, about cooperating with us.”
And Requilman has been good about letting the contractors know when the KHS office will be closed, such as on county furlough days, she said.
The contractors put four walls around a portion of the former Historic County Building lobby to give KHS a new room and more space, temporarily, which is very much appreciated, she said.
Requilman said she is trying to convince county leaders to allow KHS to open a small gift shop in the renovated building, in the expanded space provided by contractors.
“We wanted to do our best to minimize impacts” while also dealing with dust, asbestos, and other stuff, some of which has been in the building for 90 years or so, she said.
The inconvenience of accessing KHS through a back door that includes a makeshift doorbell attached to it hasn’t slowed down an average of over one researcher a day calling for information. They are looking for everything from family histories to back copies of The Garden Island newspaper (which are archived from 1911 to the present) to information on a Lihu‘e underground tunnel to The Salvation Army’s Koloa location to Maha‘ulepu to Koloa Sugar Company records on life in plantation camps, she said.
“We’re not suffering, we’re enduring. We’re grateful to have a place,” she said.
The need for a larger space won’t be quenched by the renovated Historic County Building facilities, she said.
There are several collections housed elsewhere because there simply isn’t enough room for them all in the four-room (including the new room courtesy of the contractors) KHS offices. These massive collections include pieces from the late Grace Guslander, former manager of Coco Palms, who donated her library of books, a large quilt collection and essentially all of the larger items that used to make up the museum at Coco Palms, said Requilman.
The Kilauea Sugar collection (which contained some valuable information about Ka Loko Reservoir in the aftermath of the fatal dam breach in March 2006), Kekaha and Lihu‘e plantation collections, and other records are kept elsewhere due to lack of space here, she said.
Among the newest additions to the KHS collections are compiled photographs and newspaper clippings from the family of the late former Mayor Eduardo Malapit, who served for eight years and was the nation’s first mayor of Filipino ancestry (1975).
The plan is to digitally scan the donation and make it available at www.kauaihistoricalsociety.org, a process estimated to take around two years, she said.
Around 7,000 photographs have already been scanned and catalogued from various collections, available at the website, she said.
The KHS is open Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., with research available by appointment. There is no entrance fee. Call 245-3373 for more information.
• Paul C. Curtis, assistant editor and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com.
