Fifty years after Kauai’s Russian Fort Elizabeth State Historical Park was created to mark Russia’s attempt to gain influence in Hawaii, the Waimea park formally has been given a new name.
The state Board of Land and Natural Resources last week officially changed the name of the 17-acre park to Paulaula State Historical Site to honor a much more extensive Native Hawaiian history of the area.
Paulaula is the traditional Hawaiian place name for the fort and land area at the eastern mouth of the Waimea River.
Assistant Parks Division Administrator Alan Carpenter called the name change “a very important cultural shift.”
“It’s a simple title but a very significant change that should not be understated,” Carpenter told the board.
The approval is the culmination of an extended community process to examine the park’s future. That process included the formation of a working group in 2018.
According to the Parks Division, the name Fort Elizabeth was given by the Russian-American Co. when construction of the fort was started in 1816. This name recognized Czarina Elizaveta, wife of Russian Czar Alexander I.
But Paulaula was the home of several generations of chiefs, including Kaumualii, the last high chief of Kauai.
In fact, after the Russians were expelled from Hawaii in 1817, the fort structure was completed by Kaumualii and a Hawaiian labor force sometime between 1817 and 1820. Additional buildings within the fort wall were constructed in the 1820s and 1830s, including a guardhouse, barracks and armory.
Russian Fort Elizabeth was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The site was later listed on the Hawaii Register of Historic Places in 1981.
When the Hawaii Register of Historic Places nomination form was prepared in 1978, the large stone structure was described as “the most impressive reminder of the attempts by the Russians to gain a position of influence in the Hawaiian Islands during the early 19th century.”
But recent research has found that Native Hawaiians have a more significant historical connection to the place than the relatively brief time that the Russian-American Co. was on Kauai.
King Kaumualii maintained his residential compound there from 1778 to 1820, according to State Parks. The king was memorialized with the statue placed in the park in March 2021.
A 16-member working group was created after a forum was held on Kauai in 2017 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the fort’s construction.
Park improvements were last completed in 1989, according to State Parks, and it was recognized by the forum that new information gathered about the history of the site over the past 30 years called for updating and significant revisions to the park’s interpretive signs.
In April the state Senate approved a resolution urging the BLNR to rename the park Paulaula.
In a news release issued Tuesday, Senate President Ron Kouchi said he was pleased with the board’s action.
“The community has asked that the mo‘olelo of this wahi pana is shared and the ‘aina that cares for the iwi kupuna is honored. As leaders, we have a responsibility to preserve and promote our native Hawaiian culture, history and language.”
Among other things, the resolution urges collaboration with the National Park Service so that the Hawaiian place name is reflected in the National Historic Landmark designation.
Carpenter, an archaeologist, told the board that he felt the name change was “embarrassingly late.”
“This site was established 50 years ago, and this golden anniversary is kind of tarnished by the fact that we had the wrong story there,” he said. “So in my mind, this submittal should come with an apology. When you think of the three generations of Native Hawaiians who grew up on the west side and had to drive by the residence of the last high chief of Kauai but then had to read this mis-aptly named moniker of a foreign power on the park and highway signs … Anyway, we should acknowledge these shortcomings.”
