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At Home Under the Volcanoes How Hawaiian history survives in Hilo By Eddie Foronda
Hilo is on the Island of Hawaii, the biggest of the seven islands in the Hawaiian chain and called, of course, the Big Island. Geologically, this spot of green in the Pacific is a youngster, the child of volcanoes. Hilo lies at the feet of two that created the island, Mauna Kea and the immense Mauna Loa, the most massive mountain in the world when you consider its sheer bulk above and below sea level. Mauna Loa has a young volcano, Kilauea, on its southeast shoulder. Kilauea is more active than any other volcano in the world, erupting almost constantly. Lava flow once stopped two miles shy of Hilo and as recently as 1984 came within ten miles of city limits. Says County of Hawaii Mayor Stephen Yamashiro, "The people of Hilo are aware that they live in a very special and beautiful place in the world. ... They have been through a lot together—tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions—but they would never live anywhere else." Combining threat and awesome scenery, volcanoes are the island's biggest draw. And Hilo, with its airport, plays host to many visitors bound for nearby Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. But Historic Travelers are also drawn to Hilo to see a Hawaii of the 1940s and earlier, a time of plantations and missionaries, when Westerners added their mark to native Hawaiian culture.
Shortly after Kamehameha amassed his kingdom, the first missionaries arrived in Hilo in the early 1800s. In addition to importing Christianity, they recorded the town's activities. In 1823 a missionary noted that sugar cane, taro, bananas, coconuts, and breadfruit trees were abundant in the Hilo area. The Wailuku River running through town was a trading center for the 2,000 Hilo residents who bartered with people from other districts. With the influx of Christian missionaries, Hilo became a "church town." Missionary David Belden Lyman transplanted his New England family to Hilo and built a mission house in 1839, now the oldest wood-framed building on the island and a museum of Hawaii history. The first sugar plantation was started the same year Lyman built the mission house, and only a decade later Hawaii was exporting sugar to California's Forty-Niners. But that was just a momentary upward blip in Hawaii's sugar business. It wasn't until the end of the 1850s that California's and Oregon's growing populations supported a dependable, lucrative trade in Hawaiian sugar. The increasing demand for the sweet export put a strain on Hawaii's work force, and the islands began bringing in contract laborers from China, Japan, the Philippines, Portugal, Samoa and Puerto Rico to work on the sugar cane plantations. As soon as their contracts were up, most workers exchanged the hard labor of the cane fields for better, easier ways to make a living, but the majority of them stayed, contributing to Hawaii's—and Hilo's—rich ethnic mix. The many peoples who had come to think of themselves as Hawaiian deposed Queen Liliuokalani in 1893, ending a century of monarchy. They wanted the islands to be annexed by the U.S., but that wasn't approved by the U.S. Congress until 1898, and in the meantime Hawaii set up a republic. It became a U.S. territory on June 14, 1900. Through all the political twists and turns, Hilo remained a bustling port. Visitors from neighboring islands, America, Europe and Asia found their way to Hilo. A railway, breakwater and wharf built in the early 1900s upgraded the town's role as a harbor port. Whaling ships and traders stopped in Hilo regularly. By 1940 Hilo was a thriving town with many businesses lining both sides of its main street, Kamehameha Avenue, running along the edge of the bay. World War II saw Japanese submarines shelling Hilo briefly, a minor event compared to what happened after the war. On April 1, 1946, a tsunami (an enormous wave) generated by an earthquake in the Aleutians pounded Hilo, destroying most shops and the railroad. People rebuilt, and then in 1960 earthquakes in Chile generated another tsunami that devastated the town. This time Hilo wasn't so lucky. Having finally achieved statehood only the year before, the State of Hawaii concentrated its tourism efforts on the other islands and in Kona on the west side of the Big Island. Hilo, considered too wet and subject to natural disasters, was left out of the plan.
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