Listed below are (slightly edited) articles that have appeared in 2010. For other years, click on the above links.
 

January 2010:  In Memory of Thomas F. Kelly

February 2010:  Engineering Department c. 1908

March 2010: Frosh/Soph Curriculum c. 1908

April 2010: Jr/Sr Year Curricula c.1908

May 2010: Kaimuki Astronomical Observatory

June 2010: From McKinley to Mid-Pacific

A clarification of last month’s (Dec. 2009) article is in order: The proposed (but never built) roadway tunnels I mentioned were to connect Hawaii Kai and Waimanalo, whereas the constructed utility tunnel is from the Kuapa Pond side of the Ko`olau Range to the Sandy Beach side above the location of Koko Crater. With that out of the way, let us turn our attention to this month’s vignette.

The December 2003 cover story of the Wiliki o Hawaii was titled “2003 ASCE Hawaii Section OCEA Award,” OCEA standing for the Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement. One of the nominated projects was the “Lower Hamakua Ditch By-Pass Tunnel” on the Big Island of Hawaii. It was a project undertaken by the design/build team of Jas. W. Glover Ltd. and the URS Corporation under contract with the State “to construct an emergency bypass tunnel to restore water to farmers and the environment.”

Water flow had been restricted since 1989 when part of the “90 year old, 8-foot diameter water tunnel collapsed due to a catastrophic landslide at mid height of the 2,000-foot Hakalaoa Falls.” This event left only one of the famed twin falls of Waipi`o Valley (the Hi`ilawe Falls) flowing.

The restoration project went on to become one of seven National ASCE OCEA finalists in 2004 because it “offered the team multiple challenges, including the continuing danger of further collapse. Their solution, a 300-foot long, 7-foot in diameter, hand-mined, liner plate supported bypass tunnel, was built without the use of tunneling machines and drilling robots. Over 1,300 tons of materials had to be hauled to the site at one half ton per load, over a distance of 2 miles each way, at 5 mph. The cumulative distance for all materials was over 5,200 miles, further than a round-trip from San Francisco to D.C. Despite the many challenges, the tunnel was completed on schedule, within budget, without claims and with no discernable impact on the environment.”

Around that time, I attended a monthly meeting of ASCE-Hawaii where Jeff Kalani, a consulting geotechnical engineer with the URS Corporation at the time, made a technical presentation on the project and expressed his amazement at what the original engineers were able to achieve with even fewer resources, merely human and animal power, pick and shovel, and perhaps a transit for surveying the rugged and inhospitable terrain.

During a fascinating conversation at the end of Jeff’s presentation, he casually asked me if I knew anything about an engineer or construction assistant named Thomas F. Kelly who possibly worked for William J. Payne, the tunneling engineer/manager of the sugar company. Kelly had lost his life on the job in 1909. His grave, he said, was at the site and his name evoked warm feelings in the memories of the area’s residents to this day. 

I suggested “Sugar Water: Hawaii’s Plantation Ditches” by Carol Wilcox as a possible source of information about the matter, and promised a follow-up try to find out; after all, I was given the definite year of Kelly’s demise as a lead to the search.

A few days later, Jeff sent me an email message that included three topographic maps of the precipitous area and a file that contained photographs of Kelly’s gravestone, one clearly showing a modest three-line inscription:

As Jeff put it, “the respectful nature of the site itself leads me to believe that Kelly was someone important or well-liked.” Wilcox provided little additional information. She states “William Payne took pride in his final report that all tunnels were built without an accident. The only death he reported during construction was that of an engineer named Thomas Kelly who, returning home one night, drowned when he was swept off his horse while crossing the river. He was buried up in the valley where his headstone can still be seen at ‘haole make’.” In Hawaiian “make” means “dead” or “to die,” thus “haole make” is “dead Caucasian/foreigner,” depending on the nuance given to the word “haole.”

To my surprise, my search for additional detail yielded nothing until this year, when I chanced upon a story in the Tuesday, August 3, 1909 issue of the Hilo Tribune [HT] titled “Kelly Drowned in Waipio River.” It described the deceased simply as “an employee of the Hawaiian Irrigation Co.” who “was drowned in the Waipio River last Tuesday while attempting to cross it on his return home from Kukuihaele where he had been to obtain supplies at the main office of the company.” His drowned horse, the story continued, was found the same evening, but a careful search failed to discover his body until two days later “wedged in between two large boulders where it had been carried by the water. The body was buried in Waipio gulch.” The story, it turns out, was reprinted from Honolulu’s Sunday Advertiser of July 25, 1909, thus placing the day of Kelly’s death on the previous Tuesday, July 20, 1909.

As for Kelly’s background, the article said, “the deceased was born in Rutland, Vermont, May 4, 1876. He enlisted in the army at the beginning of the Spanish American war and spent several years in the Philippines. He was a member of Theodore Roosevelt Camp No. 1, U. S. W. V.” The last acronym, I discovered, stands for “United Spanish War Veterans,” the 1898-1972 records of which are kept by the Utah State Historical Society.

What led me to the HT entry was a story in Vol. 6, No. 2 (August 1995) of “Environment Hawaii, a monthly newsletter.” This article contradicts Payne’s claim of “no accidents” on the job and cites another HT report on September 7, 1909 that a Japanese laborer “was pinned down by a large boulder falling on him; he died shortly after the accident.” Moreover, according to a lengthy article by Albert Pierce Taylor in the Advertiser [7/3/1909], another Japanese laborer was reported to have “tumbled to death hundreds of feet below.” Perhaps, in Payne’s mind, Japanese workers did not count for much. For one, even their names were very rarely reported in those days!

Finally! Earlier this year, I was able to share with Jeff Kalani the additional information about Kelly when he presented to the Engineers and Architects of Hawaii (EAH) yet another awardwinning project following recent earthquakeinduced damage to the same irrigation system. This time, Jeff was associated with Yogi Kwong Engineers LLC.

In preparation for its official centennial celebration in 2008, the University of Hawaii College of Engineering (COE) obtained the services of retired librarian and curator emerita Nancy J. Morris, Ph.D., to write a commemorative historical piece for the occasion.

Sometime in 2007, Kerri Van Duyne, the alumni relations officer of the College at the time, had asked me specifically about Leslie A. Hicks, one of the notable graduates of the college who rose to the position of Hawaiian Electric Co. (HECO) president, and for whom a power plan dedicated in 1955 on the Honolulu waterfront was named. In response, I sent her quite a number URLs and newspaper clippings (including Hicks’ obituary) and I also arranged via Mary Ellen Nordyke-Grace of HECO to obtain a related file from the company that had been compiled by librarian Annette Summerlin.

Then, in Sept. 2007, I received an email message from Dr. Morris that said in part:

“Dear Dr. Papacostas: I’m writing the history of the College of Engineering for the centennial. History being my field of study, I’ve come to realize that you are the faculty member most interested in history and I’ve enjoyed reading your very readable articles in Wiliki online. Here are a couple of things I’ve come across in researching the centennial piece and I wonder if you have some ideas on this... Also in one of your articles (April ‘95) you mention the “engineering archives”as a source of your note on Keller and UH road building. In one of the meetings with the centennial project staff, I asked about such an archive but those at the meeting weren’t sure there is such. Do you know more? The UH archive at Hamilton doesn’t have too much on engineering - mostly faculty appointment papers in the UH president’s files. I’m very much enjoying this project and hope I can pester you as other issues arise.”

I suggested to her a publication entitled “College of Engineering, University of Hawaii 1907-1982: A Record of its History and its Alumni,” which I had used in 1990 to prepare a “Proposal for a Program Leading to the Ph.D. in Civil Engineering” that (following several unsuccessful attempts by others since 1969) led to the establishment in 1992 of the doctoral program in Civil Engineering. Included in the package I sent to Dr. Morris was my proposal that she thought to “be of great help.” When the centennial book arrived, I was tickled to see an acknowledgment of my contribution to it as the “unofficial historian” of the college!

The centennial celebration came and went but, following a persisting streak in my nature, I continued to collect, as time permitted, additional records about the College (as well the larger University community). Much of this material has been documented elsewhere, but some of it that would be of particular interest to engineers and college alumni was passed over in publications targeting more general audiences.

An article in the September 1908 issue of the monthly “Paradise of the Pacific” (PP) by Prof. Willis T. Pope began “The College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of Hawaii first came to public attention in 1905. For several years prior to that time there had been considerable discussion in regard to agriculture among many of our citizens.”

By 1907, the Territorial Legislature passed two Acts that “embodied the establishment of a College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Hawaii, provision for its government and support, and special appropriations for the use of the college during the biennial period ending June, 1909.”

Lands were designated in Manoa Valley but, due to insufficient legislative appropriation and the fact that federal Morrill Act funds were not eligible for the construction of buildings, “the most feasible plan was to lease and remodel a building on Young Street near Thomas Square.”

Prof. Roadhouse, who was appointed Dean on the recommendation of Prof. Hilgard of California met with a sudden death in San Francisco in Nov. 1907, and the job of Acting Dean was given to Willis T. Pope, of the Science Department of the Honolulu Normal School.

A map in his PP 1908 account shows a 68-acre site reserved for the college in Manoa, covering 30.6 acres of “Puahia,” adjacent to the Manoa Stream, and the rest to the west in an area designated as “Pilipili.”

While at the temporary quarters, library materials and laboratory equipment were purchased and “the theodolites, levels, telescope, etc., of the Engineering department are of the latest design and best workmanship.” During the year, Prof. John W. Gilmore, then associated with State College, Pennsylvania, was appointed first President of the college at the recommendation of Pres. Schurman of Cornell and other “famous educators” at an annual salary of $4800. Leading the Engineering department was Prof. John Mason Young, who also doubled up as engineer for the college.

Thus, what was originally envisioned as strictly an agricultural college was from the start expanded to include, according to the school’s 1908-09 catalogue (summarized in the Aug. 1909 issue of PP), “a course in Science, a course in Agriculture, a course in Engineering, and a course in Household Economics.” The planned engineering curricula offered bachelor and master degrees in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering.

It appears that under a good measure of uncertainty, the first academic year “opened in what is ordinarily the middle of the scholastic year,” in February 1908, with five regular and 97 special students. Of the five regular students, two were enrolled in engineering and three in agriculture. The first two regular engineering students were DeWitt Gibson, “son of the Superintendent of the Boys Industrial School” and Ching Quon Amona, who had been “a student at the High School [Pacific Commercial Advertiser, PCA, 2/16/1908].”

On Feb. 18, 1909, Pres. Gilmore boasted to the PCA that, even though still housed in a temporary building, “as to the equipment for the engineering building, there was machinery which would be of public service. It was a testing apparatus, where a railroad company, desiring to test absolutely the strength and carrying qualities of ties, could learn it with this machine and determine just how many ties to use to the rail. The Honolulu Iron Works, the Rapid Transit Company, the Railroad Company, and other service corporations, could obtain valuable knowledge from this equipment. In fact, the College of Hawaii offered a field of study which was invaluable to
the development of the Islands.”

Next: The original engineering curricula!
 

March 2010:  FROSH/SOPH CURRICULUM c. 1908

I was pleased to hear that Richard Cox, 1964 President of ASCE-Hawaii, had circulated to family members and others last month’s (Feb. 2010) article about the inaugural year of the College of Hawaii.

The 1908-09 catalog of the College specified that admission of regular students could be by examination in specific subjects, by certificate from an accredited school or from the College Entrance Examination Board, or by transfer from other Colleges or Universities. According to a speech delivered by College President John Gilmore at the Farmers’ Institute annual meeting, regular applicants over sixteen years old could specifically be “admitted on presentation of diploma” from the three notable high schools in Honolulu: The High School, Oahu College (that is, Punahou School) or the Normal School [see Sunday Advertiser, 12/27/1908].

Entrance into engineering required the student “to be well grounded in the physical sciences, and in mathematics up to, and including solid geometry and plain trigonometry [Pacific Commercial Advertiser, PCA, 11/2/1908].” The spelling “plain” rather than “plane” appears to have been in use for several centuries, as seen in a very old book by Thomas Abel titled “Subtential Plain Trigonometry Wrought With A Sliding Rule” and Mark Forster’s even earlier “Arithmetical Trigonometry: Being the Solution Of All The Usual Cases In Plain Trigonometry By Common Arithmetic, Without Any Tables Whatsoever!”

What today would be called a “mission statement” for the new higher education institution proclaimed that “the College of Hawaii is offering courses in engineering that are designed to give a thorough training in the fundamental principles upon which professional engineering practice is based and to illustrate the application of these principles by the solution of many practical problems.” Moreover, “realizing the value of general culture, liberal provision has been made for the humanities.”

Mechanical Engineering, the newspaper said, was “planned to afford a systematic and thorough training in general engineering, covering in addition to the purely mechanical subjects, exercises in electrical measurements and testing, in chemical technology, in hydraulics, in sugar engineering and in the engineering of power plants.”

The electrical engineering course of study was about “the application of electricity to the useful arts [and] commercial aspects including electric railways, telephones, electric lighting, electrometallurgy, and the generation, transmission, and utilization of electric power.” 

Called the “oldest and broadest of the engineering professions,” Civil Engineering encompassed “municipal engineering with its problems of water supply, sewage disposal and highway construction; hydraulic engineering with its questions of irrigation and water-power development; structural engineering, dealing with the design of bridges, steel and concrete buildings, roofs, foundations and retaining walls; and transportation engineering, including the building of railways, canals, docks and tunnels.”

Sprinkled throughout the newspaper account were elements considered important or useful to the engineer, including mechanical drawing that emphasized “accuracy, speed, order and neatness,” the ability to make “accurate observation, proper order and form in recording observations [and] the drawing of correct inferences,” a fluency of “setting forth of his work in concise English,” and an understanding of “the details and cost of construction [and] their importance in the problem of design with special regard to theory and economy.”

Promoting the utilitarian side of engineering, the anonymous author of the article admonished, “Knowledge, when not accompanied by the ability to use it, is of small value.”

As for the curricula planned for the inaugural year of the College, “all three branches of engineering are parallel through the first two years, while the mechanical and electrical engineering courses differ only in the fourth year. The divergence of the course in civil engineering from the other branches begins at the close of the second year.”

The perfectly common two-year curriculum required 23 credits during each of the two semesters of the first year, and 22 credits during each semester of the second year.

English was required in each of the four semesters, as was a foreign language choice between German or French, and mechanical drawing, although the fourth class of the latter included descriptive geometry as well. Two one credit courses in “rhetoricals” were part of the first year, and three courses in chemistry occupied the freshman and half of the sophomore year.

Beginning with a very first semester review of algebra, geometry and trigonometry, the prescribed sequence of mathematics classes continued with analytic geometry, differential calculus, and integral calculus, whereas two classes in physics (general and engineering) and two classes in surveying were part of the second year requirements. Completing the classes taken during the first two years were “pattern making” (first semester, freshman year), foundry & forge (second semester, freshman year) and machine shop (second semester, sophomore year).

By the way, according to Willis T. Pope, the first “interim” president of the College of Hawaii, entrance examinations, for those who chose this path to admission, were to be held at the beginning of each term, with provisions for special examinations at other times. The passing grade was set at 70 percent.

“Tuition,” he wrote, “is free to residents of the Territory. Non residents will be given information on applying to the President.”

Next: Junior and Senior year curricula.
 

April 2010 - JR/SR YEAR CURRICULA c.1908

The readers of Honolulu's Pacific Commercial Advertiser (PCA) of June 4, 1908 were informed that, according to a letter penned by Governor Frear on the east coast and addressed to Acting Governor Mott-Smith in Honolulu, John W. Gilmore was offered the position of President of the College of Hawaii, the full name of which was the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of Hawaii, an A&M College that eventually became the University of Hawaii.

June 2010: FROM McKINLEY TO MID-PACIFIC

Last month (May 2010), I gave the well-known fact that, in 1908, what became the University of Hawaii (UH) operated in temporary structures on the then grounds of McKinley High School that enjoyed the use of an "imposing" building opened in 1908. In an article which appeared in Thrum's "Hawaiian Almanac and Annual for 1909" (published in 1908), C. E. King said:

"This structure, built of hollow concrete blocks, is two stories high and contains eight properly ventilated well-equipped class-rooms, a physical and a chemical laboratory, an up-to-date commercial department, a library and a comfortable and spacious assembly hall. In addition, there is the principal's office, ladies' retiring room, each provided with all conveniences, two hat rooms for the use of students, a private chemistry laboratory and a dark room connected with the chemical laboratory. The McKinley High School is located on Victoria street, occupying the grounds between Young and Beretania, and facing historical Thomas Square."

The 22,548 square foot building featured office and library furniture made of "handsome koa wood," and toilets with "enameled closets without wooden tops." In its "Retrospect for 1908," the Almanac added, "the contract for this building went to Wm. C. Chalmers for the sum of $52,521, and was dedicated September 11th for the opening of the school year, though not entirely completed." Master architect Harry Livingston Kerr designed the building.

The building is still there for all to see. After McKinley was relocated to King Street, it was occupied by the Linekona ("Lincoln") Elementary School, now in the Makiki District. In 1990, the building was renovated as the "Academy Art Center," the largest art private school in Hawaii. Under the administration of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the renovated building earned the 1990 preservation award of the Hawaii Historic Foundation, an organization of which I now happen to be a member.

By the way, the issue of the Almanac that I quoted above was its first edition to list in its "Register & Directory" the entire faculty of the "College of Hawaii," including the Head of the Department of Engineering, Prof. J. M. Young.

According to a Sept. 22, 1908 story in the Evening Bulletin (EB), "surprised because of the interest that has been exhibited in the engineering branches locally, J. M. Young, head of the engineering department of the new College of Hawaii dropped in for a chat over existing conditions with Marston Campbell this morning. Mr. Young is an Eastern man, being a graduate of Cornell university, and he finds that a great many of the customs here are novel as schools are concerned."

Although not clarified in the story, readers of my Nu`uanu Dam (2006-07) and Pearl Harbor Drydock (2008-09) series will recall that Campbell was the Territory's Superintendent of Public Works at the time. The newspaper story continued by quoting Young, "I really was surprised when I found out what enthusiasm there is exhibited here for the study of engineering. It is the usual thing for a youthful student to fancy the courses in arts rather than the hard grind of engineering."

In Nov. 1909, Young and Chalmers, the McKinley building contractor, founded what was to become a major firm, the Pacific Engineering Co., Ltd. Young's triple role as professor, College engineer and private contractor led to a series of what would be described as "conflict of interest" situations that have recently been documented by Barbara Furstenberg in Vol. 42 (2008) of "The Hawaiian Journal of History."

The Hawaiian Annual for 1910 (copyrighted in 1909) featured the establishment and planned programs of "The College of Hawaii" by its president, John W. Gilmore, and listed both the Regents and the faculty of the institution in its registry. Among the latter was Arthur R. Keller, Professor of Civil Engineering. The middle initial stood for "Ripont." Also a Cornell man, according to Furstenberg, Keller relieved Young of some teaching responsibilities.

The next major issue facing the College was the campaign to ensure support for a permanent campus. As Gilmore put it in the Feb. 1911 Paradise of the Pacific magazine, "if the College is to do the work that lies before it and if it is to meet the opportunities that are ripe, it must receive aid from the Legislature... The last Legislature made provision for the purchase of lands in Manoa Valley and in accordance with this provision some ninety acres have been procured... The College now needs a permanent building on these grounds with sufficient funds to furnish it... It is reasonable to assert that the Territory of Hawaii could not make an investment that would bring larger returns for the welfare and productive capacity of its citizens."

The Hawaiian Annual for 1913 published a year later (in 1912) contained a follow-up article on the College by Professor of Botany and Horticulture Vaughan McCaughey announced "the completion of a new building, the first of the permanent buildings, erected on the college campus in Manoa Valley." This Main Building (later named "Hawaii Hall") "is built of concrete, and the architectural features are mainly Greek. [It] houses all of the departments of the College with the exception of that of chemistry, the engineering shops and certain of the agricultural and horticultural enterprises." A drawing of "The College of Hawaii Proposed Plan of Campus" was included.

The College campus is abutting the Mid-Pacific Institute, which the Thrum's Annual for 1912 describes as the "consolidation of Kawaiahao Seminary and Mills School."

Put in the vernacular of the day, "beautifully situated at the mouth of Manoa Valley, Honolulu, is the Mid-Pacific Institute, the completion of which dates from September 12, 1910, with the opening of Mills School as its Boys' Department. Its ally, the Kawaiahao Seminary, forming the girls' branch, with Miss M. E. Bosher as its new principal, moved thither and took possession of Atherton Hall at the opening of 1909." Established in 1865, the Seminary was originally intended mainly for Hawaiian girls, whereas the Mills Institute was founded in 1892 primarily for Chinese boys.

In 1912, the main campus of the University of Hawaii moved from the grounds of McKinley High School on Victoria Street facing Thomas Square to a place adjacent to the newly-minted Mid-Pacific Institute "in green Manoa Valley... where mountain winds and showers refresh her fertile lands," as the school's alma mater proclaims.