If you’re looking for interesting stories of Hawaii companies outside of Honolulu, Hilo is a good place to start. It’s the home of Big Island Candies, Suisan, KTA, Ken’s House of Pancakes and Café 100. Tamashiro Market, King’s Bakery and Y. Hata began there. The Hilo Theatre is the only one in the country to be hit twice by a tsunami.
One of the more interesting Hilo stories is Koehnen’s Interiors furniture store.
F.W. "Fritz" Kōehnen (pronounced "Ker-nan") came to Hilo to work as a bookkeeper for H. Hackfeld & Co. in 1908. On May 13, 1929, 83 years ago this week, just months before the start of the Great Depression, he bought out "Doc" Hill’s optical shop. Besides eyeglasses, they sold watches, jewelry, silver items, dinnerware and flatware.
World War II brought Carl Rohner to the islands where he met and married Fritz’s daughter, Helie. He joined the family business and added a furniture department. It did well, and in 1957 they bought out the old Hackfeld building at 76 Kamehameha Ave.
Old-timers remember that Hackfeld & Co. built a beautiful koa staircase for their flagship Hilo store in the 1890s. It’s now part of Koehnen’s. "Some tourists have wandered in thinking we’re a museum," says Karyl Franks, granddaughter of the founder. "All our display cases are koa, and the floor is ohia. I can see why they think that."
In 1979 they closed the jewelry department and now sell furnishings exclusively in their Hilo store.
"Granddad was very trusting," Franks recalls. "Every now and then, people tell us that in the old days he gave them several wedding rings to show their future bride on the plantation. They’d propose. Hopefully, she’d say ‘yes.’ Then she would make her selection, and the other rings would be returned. No money would change hands until then."
However, business has not been a cakewalk for Koehnen’s or for many other businesses in Hilo. They have been struck by two major tsunamis and flooded five times.
In 1946, when they were in their old location on the mauka side of Kamehameha Avenue, the tsunami washed the buildings across the street into theirs. Two weeks before their 1957 grand opening in the Hackfeld building, a flood hit them.
"Our dad put my brother and me on the mattresses that were floating in the basement, with wood sticks to row with, and told us to collect anything that floated." Franks recalls. "We still opened on time!"
"We got a call several hours before the 1960 tsunami from the chief of police," Frank continues. "He said there was an earthquake in South America and that we should batten down the hatches in case a tsunami hit.
"The building has concrete walls 24 inches thick. Some of the structural beams were wooden railroad ties, which must have been cheap and available when it was built. And we have a walk-in vault with 24-inch-thick walls.
"We loaded our important papers into a truck and parked it at the police station. We hauled everything we could up to the second floor and boarded up all the windows.
"When the tidal wave hit at 1 a.m., it pushed the front doors open, and 3 feet of water came in. Dad and I rushed down and pushed the water out with brooms. When the sun came up, it looked like another planet. Nothing was recognizable. So much of Hilo was destroyed around us.
"But it also brought out the best in people. Complete strangers came by in the days that followed and offered to help. Our mainland silverware suppliers replaced our water-damaged silver at no charge. We opened again in three weeks."
Koehnen’s was flooded in December 2000 when 3 feet of rain fell in 24 hours. The store’s 9,000-square-foot basement was filled with furniture. "This is a great location, right across the street from the ocean," Franks said. "But the basement is below sea level, and flooding was expected."
Koehnen’s installed water pumps in case of flooding, but when the electricity goes off, like it did in 2000, they don’t work. They elevated things on 2-foot-high shelves and only put things in the basement that could handle water. "Flood insurance is expensive and unaffordable," Franks said.
"The next day we had a flood sale. People lined up an hour before opening, and 2,300 items were sold in just a few hours. We just keep going. It’s not the end of the world. We had a good cry and life goes on."
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Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
