Longtime Kaua‘i civil engineer Joseph Hughes Moragne (1864-1937) was born in Alabama and educated at Jacksonville State Normal School and Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College in Auburn, Ala. Prior to coming to Hawai‘i in 1898, Moragne had worked in Alabama,
Longtime Kaua‘i civil engineer Joseph Hughes Moragne (1864-1937) was born in Alabama and educated at Jacksonville State Normal School and Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College in Auburn, Ala.
Prior to coming to Hawai‘i in 1898, Moragne had worked in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Idaho, and had served in the U.S. 2nd Regiment, 5th Engineer Battalion during the Spanish-American War.
His first jobs in Hawai‘i were with the Territorial Survey Department on the Big Island and with Public Works and Survey Department of the Territory until 1907, when he became a Kaua‘i County engineer and road supervisor.
As Kaua‘i County engineer, Moragne engineered and paved the previously unpaved Kaua‘i Belt Road — the roadway that encircles Kaua‘i for about 75 miles from Ha‘ena to Mana — beginning in 1910 and finishing in 1920.
In 1912, the productive and versatile engineer prepared plans and specifications for a number of bridges on the Belt Road, including the Waikoko, Waipa and Wai‘oli bridges, which were built by local contractors that same year.
The Hanalei Bridge, prefabricated by the firm of Hamilton & Chambers Co., New York City, was also constructed in 1912 while Moragne was county engineer.
Among his other accomplishments as county engineer was the building of the Hule‘ia Cane Haul Bridge in 1909 — the first reinforced concrete bridge built in Hawai‘i.
With Lihu‘e Plantation from 1919 until his retirement in 1937, Moragne engineered a vast, complex system of plantation irrigation tunnels and ditch systems.
He designed the Kapahi Tunnel, the 6,028-foot Hanalei Tunnel in 1926 and the 3,558-foot Ka‘apoko Tunnel in 1928.
Other structures and systems of which Moragne was architect include the ‘Opaeka‘a Road Bridge, Pu‘uopa‘e Bridge, Koke‘e irrigation system, Wailua River Arch Bridge built in 1919, Hanapepe Bridge constructed in 1911, the Ahukini to Kealia railroad and the Lihu‘e Plantation mill to Nawiliwili railroad.
Joseph Hughes Moragne married Mary Chalmers and they had three children: Josephine, William and Catherine.
