Back in the Day on Maui

Recalling Maui’s near and distant past, compiled from Honolulu Star-Advertiser archives:

60 years ago …

Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. announced it will delay for at least three years its schedule for closing its plantation villages. The timetable for closing the company-owned villages that was announced last year called for the gradual but mandatory closing of 24 communities at a cost of about $10 million.

Herbert C. Jackson, manager of Kahului Development Co., said the plantation’s goal is still to be out of the village housing business within 10 years.

90 years ago …

Talkie equipment valued at $100,000, to be installed by Consolidated Amusement Co. in nine theaters in the territory, arrived aboard the Manukai. Two engineers from the Radio Corp. of America are aboard the Malolo and will begin the work of installation. Four theaters in Honolulu — the Princess, Empire, Pawaa and Palama — and theaters at Schofield Barracks and in Wailuku and Kahului will have the new equipment.

Rene Williams, conductor of the Princess theater orchestra, announced he will be leaving the territory. Consolidated officials said the Princess orchestra would in all probability be discontinued with the entry of the talkies in that playhouse.

120 years ago …

President Wood of the Board of Health returned on the steamer Kauai from the island of Maui. He states positively that seven bubonic plague deaths have occurred since Feb. 4 and that those seen by himself personally were malignant and typical types of plague, being black in all the tissues.

Chinatown in Kahului was condemned and burned before President Wood left Lahaina.

He said the residents of Kahului and those from other parts of the island as well have reached a general conclusion as to the manner in which the infection reached Kahului. The Sanitary Committee gave him the following statement:

“Two months before the plague broke out and quarantine was established in Honolulu, eatables for Chinese New Year celebration were imported from China, via Honolulu, by a restaurant keeper in the center of the infected district of Kahului, and one, at least, of the plague deaths arose in that restaurant.“