| Arts & Culture
The Harbor at Kahului
 In the mid-1800s, the sugar planters in Central and East Maui faced major obstacles getting their product overland through deeply carved gulches to the major ports on the west side of the island. Because of this, many of the plantations in East Maui established their own landings near their mills. Smaller ships handled this trade, risking destruction trying to negotiate the treacherous waters along the northeastern coast.
Meanwhile, the harbor at Kahului and the town that sprang up around it grew and developed in response to the needs of the emerging sugar industry in Wailuku. Although Kahului was centrally located, it was not a natural haven from storm and wind. As a harbor, its chief advantage was a narrow break in the coral caused by the fresh water from the Waikapu River, which emptied into Kahului Bay at one time. (Coral does not grow in fresh water.) The break allowed ships to anchor inside the protecting reef.
The anchorage was less than ideal. It was exposed to the full force of the trade winds, there was very little deep water and a heavy surge as well. Besides this, the area was prone to tidal wave damage. There is a story that in 1883, when Krakatoa exploded, the tidal wave that resulted carried a small schooner anchored off Kahului inland and set it down high and dry near old Kahului School (the old buildings on Kaahumanu Avenue opposite Maui Beach Hotel). By the end of the nineteenth century, however, Kahului was fast-becoming a thriving port town, and the harbor improvements continued well into the next century.
The debris dredged from the Kahului Harbor was dumped into nearby twin fishponds named Kanaha and Mau'oni which, until the early 1900s, were famous as a source for mullet during the seasons when fishing the sea was forbidden. The muck eventually filled in large sections of the ponds and eventually the pond outlet to the sea was blocked. Remnants of the fishpond remain as the Kanaha bird sanctuary. It once covered a large part of the current Kahului Industrial area. Old-timers remember when the area was a swamp.
Steam navigation came to Hawaii in the 1860s. In 1872, the Wilder Steamship Company built a good landing and freight crane at Kahului. They also operated a store in the wharf shed. Around 1877, Claus Spreckels built his own facilities at Kahului to handle Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar shipping.
 A couple of years later, Kahului Railroad Company was founded by Thomas H. Hobron, William Bailey, and William Smith to transport sugar from East Maui fields to the mills in Central Maui and then on to the port of Kahului to be loaded onto ships. The first train, pulled by a locomotive named the Queen Emma, ran down the tracks from Wailuku to the wharves at Kahului in 1879.
In 1897, friction developed between Spreckels and the Wilders. Because of his HC&S land holdings, Spreckels could shut off the Kahului Railroad from the waterfront, which he did. The Wilders started legal proceedings in protest because the railroad, they said, was a public facility. Spreckels countered by organizing the Maui Railroad and Steamship Company and turned the HC& S land around Kahului over to it.
About this time, control of HC&S passed from Spreckels to Alexander and Baldwin. However, Spreckels retained control of Maui Railroad and Steamship Company, which was a separate corporate entity. He shut off both HC&S and Kahului Railroad from the waterfront. HC&S was forced to buy out both Spreckels and the Wilders in 1899. After that all railroad and port facilities were run by the Kahului Railroad Company.
At first strong winds and heavy seas pounded the docks at the harbor. In order to mitigate the effect of the elements, the West and East breakwaters at the mouth of the port were built in several stages from 1906 to 1931. The breakwaters required over 593,000 tons of rock. The East breakwater was started first in 1906 and the company continued work on it until the harbor was turned over to the Federal government. In the interim, the first wharf was built in 1910 to accommodate the S.S. Claudine, queen of the interisland fleet. Passengers could step off the ship directly ashore for the first time.
After the wharf was completed, the harbor and breakwater were transferred to the Federal Government. Pier One was the first big Federal project. It was completed in 1923, after extensive dredging. Oil and molasses tanks stand on the area that was built-up from the muck.
Before the completion of Pier One, the big ships continued to anchor off-shore. One of the largest ships to anchor offshore was the British battleship HMS Capetown in 1922. It is said that the young Albert Windsor, Duke of York and later King George VI of England, was among a group of young British officers who were stranded on Maui when the ship sailed on to Honolulu. The officers had been at a party in Lahaina and didn't make it back in time.
 As the pineapple industry expanded and more tourists came to the island, there was a need for better facilities. By 1927 Pier Two was completed and replaced the Claudine Wharf, which was damaged during the tidal wave of 1923. The West breakwater was constructed in 1931, and the first bulk sugar plant in the world was built in Kahului in 1941 - just in time for the start of World War II.
During that war, the harbor was the scene of naval action on December 15, and again on December 30, 1941. A Japanese submarine surfaced off Kahului and lobbed shells into the town. None of the shells exploded, but a smokestack at the Maui Pine cannery was damaged. There were holes shot through the wharf shed at Pier 1 as well.
In 1927, the port of Kahului handled over 370,000 tons of trans-Pacific and inter-island freight. By 1944, the total volume of freight was nearly a million tons. Today, the harbor handles twice the tonnage it did in the 1940s, and the volume continues to increase.
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| Local Grinds
Oriental Hot Munch
Ingredients:
1/4 Cup Butter, melted
2 Tb Soy sauce
2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce
1 tsp Seasoning salt
1/4 tsp Garlic powder
1 Cup Chow mein noodles
1 Cup Crispy rice cereal squares
1 Cup Crispy wheat cereal squares
1 Cup Pretzel sticks, broken
1/2 Cup Pecan halves
1/2 Cup Cashews
Instructions:
Combine butter, soy sauce, Worchestershire sauce, hot sauce, seasoning
salt, and garlic powder. Combine remaining ingredients in a 15 x 10
x 1 pan. Drip butter mixture over cereal mixture, toss gently. Bake
at 250 degrees for one hour, stirring occasionally. Cool and store
in an airtight container. Yield: 5 Servings
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| Spotlight On…
Kanaio
 Kanaio was named for the naio trees that once flourished in this ancient ahupua'a that stretches form the land to the sea. As in Kaupo and Kahikinui, before the introduction of cattle in the area, the forest zone was at a much lower elevation and there were greater amounts of rain. At one time dry land taro was cultivated in the lower forest zone.
 The area is rich in cultural and historical sites and includes a houlu ua, rain shrine, about which it is said, "whenever the clouds gathered over this spot it would surely rain."
The Kanaio district includes the 30,000 acre 'Ulupalakua Ranch. At the upper reaches above the ranch, Polipoli State Park and the Kula Forest Reserve are home to pine trees that grow in weird shapes, pushed by the wind. Polipoli State Park is the launching place for intrepid hang-gliders and pilots of gossamer light aircraft powered by small engines.
Still further up the mountain sits the Haleakala Observatories, a cluster of observatories, tracking stations and communications facilities, established in 1956 under the auspices of the University of Hawaii.
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