Thanks to Ryan Ozawa for forwarding links to a series of incredible items now available on YouTube.
No, not cat videos.
Here’s Ryan’s description:
Rick Helin discovered several vintage 16mm films depicting old Hawaii back in 1940 at a garage sale, and got help from the California Pioneers of Santa Clara County and a special telecine converter to convert them to digital format.
These are rare glimpses inside Hawaii of another era. Yes, they may feel like home movies. But they depict a very different home.
Enjoy!
Kauai 1940:
Big Island (Kona side)
The Big Island (Hilo)
I just watched the Hilo version, and was surprised by the parking meters downtown.
An entry in Wikipedia dates the first installation of a parking meter in mid-1935.
Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale designed the first working parking meter, the Black Maria, in 1935. The History Channel’s… History’s Lost and Found documents their success in developing the first working parking meter. Thuesen and Hale were engineering professors at Oklahoma State and began working on the parking meter in 1933 at the request of Carl C. Magee of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States.[1] The world’s first installed parking meter was in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935.
How did little Hilo town get parking meters installed within five years?
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According to Robert Schmitt in a document of Hawaii “firsts” at: http://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10524/101/JL13113.pdf?sequence=2
the first parking meters in Hawaii were installed in 1951 at the Honolulu airport.
As a native Hiloan, I know there were no parking meters in the 40’s.
So what year was this actually filmed? Time to search for clues.
Incredible preservation of this place year the year I was born far away. The Kona version includes Hilo area scenes — Rainbow Falls and former Onomea Arch and bay. It is valuable effort. Thanks for posting.
Couldn’t be 1940 Hilo. Many of the cars are not that old.
At the 4:00 mark on the middle video is a brief shot of a lady on strike holding a sign. Maybe someone could identify when that strike was to nail down the time period.
A mishmash of shooting years. The Japanese Park is definitely pre 1946 Tsunami. And the buildings on the little island off the shore. My Parents lived there those years, Hilo is the greatest.
I bet the cars tell the story. If someone can identify the year of the autos in the Hilo shot, it will at least rule out certain eras (cars from the 1950s mean the film couldn’t be from an earlier year)
Someone who knows their cars better than I needs to give a difinitive answer but my read is that many are from mid to late 40s and maybe even the very early 50s. Plus some of the women’s dresses look to be early 50s. Also, Laupahoehoe looks to be post 1946 tsunami because the teachers cottages are gone and the school is gone. The school was moved to higher ground in 1952.
There are other small clues. Look at the beach chairs at the Kona Inn, they are made of metal tubing. That would have been impossible during the war. I still have some beach chairs from the early 40s and they are made of wood.
The Kona video showing bringing cattle out to boats is very similar to footage in Edgy Lee’s documentary Paniolo O’ Hawai’i of a few years ago. Good stuff.
The sampan buses were fabulous. If these shots were from the same year then I would put this at late 1952 or early 1953 judging by the 1952 Ford in one of the shots and the license plates were black from 1953 to 1956. Where can I get a copy?
Mahalo!
Ian… I brought these videos to attention on Oct. 17th…. didn’t post the Kona one out of the respect the person posting them stated on their youtube site.
http://damontucker.com/2012/10/17/video-hilo-in-the-early-1940s-before-the-tsunami/
Re: Kona video – Kawaihae paniolo scenes
https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/rangelands/article/view/11798/11071
Livestock in the land of aloha Hawaii. written by Extension specialist in pasture and livestock management, Univ. of Hawaii Cooperative Extension
has pictures almost identical to the video, with caption
“shows cattle loading procedure that was used at Kawaihae harbor, on the Big Island of Hawaii, until 1949”
Notes on the youtube description clearly indicate there were a few shots circa 1951-1953 from a later trip that had been edited into the original films by the original photographer. I elected to leave them in, but noted their existence in “the Youtube description section”. Dates were determined by the Kodak edgecodes marked on the film stock which reflect the dates the filmstock was created, not necessarily the date of filming. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed these films as much as I did.
So how can I get a copy with the Hilo Sampan Buses?
Mahalo,
Ryon Rickard