ISLAND HISTORY: A personal history of ancestry and race in Hawai‘i
Since the early days of contact between foreigners and the people of Hawai‘i, there have been men hailing from faraway lands who married island girls and made their home in Hawai‘i.
ISLAND HISTORY: The haunted Hale Nani Hotel at Po‘ipu, Kaua‘i
Kaua‘i’s haunted Hale Nani Hotel once stood on Nahumaalo Point, across from Koloa Landing, at Po‘ipu, Kaua‘i.
ISLAND HISTORY: Robert Hamada and the Coco Palm’s fireworks fiasco
Born and raised on Kaua‘i, Robert Hamada (1921-2014) is best known as a woodturner who created works of art out of milo and hau wood.
ISLAND HISTORY: The story of the ‘Ghost Dog of Po‘ipu’
In 1972, Kaua‘i-born historian, author, and University of Hawai‘i professor Rubellite ‘Ruby’ Kawena Kinney Johnson (b. 1933) told “Honolulu Star-Bulletin” newspaper writer Lois Taylor the story of the “Ghost Dog of Poipu” that her father, Ernest Kaipoleimanu Kinney (1906-1987), had told her some years earlier.
ISLAND HISTORY: Coco Palms’ first entertainers were Ah Sau Ahana and his musicians
Born and raised on Kaua‘i, Ah Sau Ahana (1907-2008) learned to play the banjo, ukulele and steel guitar while attending Kaua‘i High School.
ISLAND HISTORY: Ni‘ihau owner Keith Robinson’s book ‘Approach to Armageddon’
During 1993, I became friends with Keith Robinson (born 1941), the co-owner, with his brother, Bruce Robinson, of Ni‘ihau, and a descendent of Eliza Sinclair, who purchased Ni‘ihau on Jan. 20, 1864 from Kamehameha V in the names of her two sons for $10,000, as indicated in Royal Patent No. 2944, dated Feb. 23, 1864.
ISLAND HISTORY: Larry Rivera’s early days at the Coco Palms Hotel
In 1951, Lawrence ‘Larry’ Rivera (1930-2023), was hired at the Coco Palms Lodge, which Alfred and Veda Hills had opened for business that same year as a lodge of 24 rooms with 5 employees.
ISLAND HISTORY: How Coco Palms employee ‘Big John’ Kauo got his nickname
Born in Anahola, John Pakahea “Big John” Kauo (1933-2013) had graduated from Kamehameha Schools and had labored in the Kauai pineapple fields, when one day in 1954, his Aunty Moki Hanohano, the night dining room manager at Coco Palms, offered him a job as a waiter.
ISLAND HISTORY: ‘Big John’ Kauo and the Coco Palms Torch-Lighting Ceremony
In 1954, John Pakahea “Big John” Kauo (1933-2013) was hired as a waiter at Kaua‘i’s Coco Palms Hotel by his Aunty Moki Hanohano, the night dining room manager at Coco Palms, to begin what was to become a thirty-seven year career at Coco Palms in which he retired as Coco Palms’ manager.
ISLAND HISTORY: Walter ‘Freckles’ Smith Jr.’s early years at the Coco Palms Hotel
Walter “Freckles” Smith Jr. (1934-2024), who passed away recently, was the president of Kaua‘i’s Smith’s Motor Boat Service Inc., the son of Walter J. Smith (1910-1970) and Emily A. Smith (1909-2008), the founders of the business, and the father of Walter Kamika Smith, the company’s present general manager.
ISLAND HISTORY: Original Coco Palms Hotel employee Gladys Hashimoto
Original Coco Palms Hotel employee Gladys Sun Hashimoto (1929-2020) was hired by Coco Palms manager Grace Buscher (1910-2000) shortly after Coco Palms opened in 1953.
ISLAND HISTORY: Sam Mia, Madame Pele and the Coco Palms Hotel
Originally from Kona, Sam Mia (1919-1970), of 100 percent Hawaiian ancestry, was one of the original employees of Kaua‘i’s Coco Palms Hotel when it opened in 1953, and he continued to work there until the day he died in 1970.
ISLAND HISTORY: Original Coco Palms Hotel employee Andrew Kane
At the opening of Kaua‘i’s Coco Palms Hotel in 1953, one of the first people manager Grace Buscher (1910-2000) hired was Andrew Kane (1923-1991).
ISLAND HISTORY: Original Coco Palms Hotel employee Harriet Kamala Kaholokula
Kohala, Hawai‘i-born Harriet Kamala Kaaumoana Kaholokula (1924-2004) was one of the first employees hired by manager Grace Buscher after Lyle “Gus” Guslander opened the Coco Palms Hotel in 1953.
ISLAND HISTORY: Original Coco Palm Hotel employee Elsie Ho‘opi‘i
In 1953, Lyle Guslander (1914-1984) bought the Coco Palms Hotel, which was in operation until 1992, and hired Grace Buscher (1910-2000) as manager.
ISLAND HISTORY: Dorothy Leilani Ellis was Miss Hawai‘i of 1953
Born on Kaua‘i, Dorothy Leilani Ellis (1937-2007) was the youngest of six children of former Kaua‘i County Chairman William Ellis and Maria Pihaleo Ellis.
ISLAND HISTORY: The harlots of Wailua Homesteads, Kaua‘i
In his book, “Kaua‘i As It Was In the 1940s and 1950s,” Mike Ashman (1921-2018), a radio broadcaster at KTOH radio, Lihu‘e, during 1940 and 1941, and later during 1948 through 1952, wrote a chapter about the harlots he’d heard tell of residing at Wailua Homesteads, Kaua‘i in 1940.
ISLAND HISTORY: Joseph Lovell, kama‘aina forefather of Kaua‘i’s Lovell ‘ohana
Joseph Lovell (1806-1886), the forefather of Kaua‘i’s Lovell ‘ohana, was born in England.
ISLAND HISTORY: Old-time assistant Lihu‘e postmaster Yoshiake ‘Dick’ Hiramoto
Yoshiake ‘Dick’ Hiramoto (1902-1976), the son of Japanese immigrants Seijiro and Samayo Hiramoto, was born at Lihu‘e Plantation’s Kilipaki Camp, once located opposite the plantation’s sugar mill on what is now Haleko Road.
ISLAND HISTORY: Japanese American internment sites on Kaua‘i during WW II
During World War II, from 1942 to 1944, U.S. military personnel, in collaboration with local authorities, arrested and interned 2,270 people of Japanese ancestry in Hawai‘i.