Jed Gaines, founder of Read Aloud America, recently suggested I write about streets and how they got their names. Who was Keeaumoku Street named for, he wanted to know.
Keeaumoku
Rich Budnick’s book “Hawaiian Street Names” says it was named for High Chief Keeaumoku (1784?-1824), an adviser to Kamehameha I and governor of Maui. He was the father of Queen Kaahumanu.
Jack Lane
One of the streets that interested me was Jack Lane, off Pali Highway in Nuuanu. It meanders mauka between some of the mansions on Pali Highway and Waolani Stream.
Mary Kawena Pukui’s “Place Names of Hawaii” says the lane was named for Jack Kalakiela, a police clerk. I wanted to know more. I found some information in local newspapers from over 100 years ago.
Jack Samuel Kalakiela was born in Kualoa, Oahu, in 1868 and resided at the end of Jack Lane. It was so named by 1900.
The earliest record I found of Kalakiela, dated 1896, said he, as a police clerk, assisted Capt. Kanae in capturing three men with opium near a Chinese theater. Kalakiela was slightly injured.
The Honolulu Advertiser said he was a favorite in the department and had a large coterie of friends. He was active in local politics.
Between 1908 and 1910 he was elevated to deputy sheriff and then chief of detectives. In 1913 he was elected to the territorial Senate.
Almost immediately, he got into trouble. The newspapers dubbed it the “Battle of the Bananas.”
Health professionals in the territory wanted to banish mosquitoes. Because they can hold water, the government decided “banana trees must go” and sent out workers to cut them down.
The Legislature passed Act 37 to recompense banana tree owners. That led to the 1913 Legislature being termed the “Banana Session.” Those affected could file a claim and be paid $1.50 for each tree removed.
Because his committee was on the front lines of the battle to rid Hawaii of mosquitoes, Kalakiela was termed the “Banana Statesman” or “Banana Jack.”
Kalakiela offered to process claims but charged applicants a $2 fee to cover the printing of forms, the notarizing of them by his wife and his time, he said. Some cried foul. Others called it “graft.”
Kalakiela collected about $400 in such fees. His legislative salary was $600 for the 60-day term. “Banana Jack” said it was not graft and invited the Legislature to investigate him. The hearings lasted for several months.
“Banana Jack” was censured and lost his reelection bid for the Legislature. The Civil Service Commission decided he should lose his job with the sheriff’s office, but Sheriff Charles Rose refused to let him go.
Jack Kalakiela dropped out of the public eye and died in 1921. He was 52.
In 1935 all 16 residents of Jack Lane requested the street’s name be changed.
County Supervisor Manuel Pacheco argued against it. “Jack Lane was named after Jack Kalakiela, onetime deputy sheriff, chief of the local detective force and member of the territorial Legislature,” Pacheco said.
“If the group wants to give the little Nuuanu valley road a Hawaiian designation, why not name it Kalakiela lane?” he argued. The name was left Jack Lane.
A couple of interesting organizations have existed on Jack Lane. The Toyo Club was there around 1946 at 120 Jack Lane.
For several years, soprano Lei Adams owned the “House in the Garden” on Jack Lane. Many tourists and locals attended luau there.
Temple Emanu-El is at the beginning of Jack Lane today. Earlier locations included Beretania Street downtown and Oahu Avenue in Manoa.
In 1960 the congregation moved to its current location at Pali Highway and Jack Lane in Nuuanu. Emanu-El means “God is with us” in Hebrew.
At 23 Jack Lane is the Tendai Mission. The Mahayana Buddhist temple was established there in 1973, in the former home of Alfred Castle. It was the first of its kind outside of Japan.
A golden Senju Kannon, or thousand-armed Goddess of Mercy statue, stands on a 10-foot-high pedestal in the front yard. Canon Camera Co. took its name from the Senju Kannon and her all-seeing attributes.
Wilhelmina Rise
Shanghai Lil asked about the streets on Wilhelmina Rise. Were some named for Matson liners?
Yes. Many of the streets there were named for company ships, such as Lurline, Mariposa, Monterey, Sierra, Claudine and Wilhelmina.
Carnation Place derives from a carnation farm that once existed there.
When it was first built in 1904, Wilhelmina Rise was called Palolo Hill.
Thurston Avenue
George Butterfield said: “For several years in the 1960s, I lived on Thurston Avenue, a bit below the Diamond Head-side slopes of Punchbowl.
“In the early 1990s there was an effort by Hawaiian activists to rename the street to ‘Kamaka‘eha,’ one of the birth names of Queen Lili‘uokalani. Lorrin A. Thurston was a key player in her overthrow.
“City Councilwoman Donna Kim proposed changing Thurston to Kamaka‘eha in 1993, but the effort failed when the activists could not obtain the required majority of homeowners’ agreement.
“While living there, I was just a couple of houses from Magazine Street, which connected Thurston to Prospect Street, and the name fascinated me.
“Pukui’s ‘Place Names of Hawaii’ said the name came from a path during the monarchy days which led to a magazine on the Punchbowl slopes where gunpowder was stored.”
“Kamaka‘eha” means “sore eyes.” High Chiefess Kinau, at the time of Lili‘uokalani’s birth, had an eye infection.
The name given at birth to Lili‘uokalani was Lili‘u (smarting), Loloku (tearful), Walania (burning pain), Kamaka‘eha (the sore eye). Her brother, King David Kalakaua, gave her the name “Lili‘uokalani” in 1877 when he named her heir apparent.
Thurston Twigg-Smith, Lorrin Thurston’s grandson and chairman of The Honolulu Advertiser at the time, said, “It was unclear whether Thurston Avenue was named for my great-great-grandfather Asa Thurston, who arrived in Kailua-Kona in 1820 as part of the first contingent of New England missionaries, or my grandfather Lorrin Thurston, who served as interior minister under King David Kalakaua.”
Twigg-Smith said it may well have been the latter since Lorrin Thurston helped negotiate the treaty that brought Portuguese workers to Hawaii, many of whom settled in the Punchbowl area.
Twigg-Smith noted that nine of the 13 men, including Thurston, who were members of the Committee of Public Safety that played a leading role in the monarchy’s overthrow, had streets named after them.
“They include Cooper Road for Henry Ernest Cooper; McCandless Lane for John A. McCandless; Smith Street for William Owen Smith; Castle Street for William Richards Castle; Wilcox Lane for Albert Spencer Wilcox; Waterhouse Street for Henry Waterhouse; Wilder Avenue for William Chauncey Wilder; and Brown Way for Andrew Brown.”
Do you know the background about a local street, or wonder how it was named? If so, send me an email.
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Bob Sigall is the author of the “Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
