Recalling Maui’s near and distant past, compiled from Honolulu Star-Advertiser archives:
50 years ago …
Housing, not manpower, is Maui’s critical shortage, a hotel manager told a joint Senate-House Labor Committee hearing in Wailuku. He said major landowners should make land available to ease the situation.
Sheldon Randall, general manager of the Maui Hilton Hotel, said he has a waiting list of some 150 prospective employees but none was able to find housing on Maui’s west coast. He said he feels it is up to Amfac and others with property on that side of the island to make land available for housing.
Randall said 43 percent of his hotel’s employees live in Central and East Maui and many drive as many as 80 miles to work.
60 years ago …
Maui-grown Norfolk Island pines were sold here commercially for the first time as Christmas trees this year and though unpublicized were an instant success.
More than 1,000 trees from a 31/2-acre forestry and private land reserve and private land near Lahaina in the West Maui Mountains were sold. Sales to the public were made both through the Department of Agriculture and Forestry’s nursery at Naska and retail stores.
Because of the pine’s instant acceptance by the public, the State Board now plans to grow them on a large-scale commercial basis.
80 years ago …
Unless arrangements can be made to secure trees from local sources, a big majority of Maui’s families are going to be without the customary Christmas trees in their homes.
Maui’s shipment of Christmas trees arrived from the Pacific Northwest in such condition that most of the pine needles dropped off as they were carried from the truck to stores, leaving a path of needles in their wake. The trees apparently were damaged in shipment.
A big majority of merchants here, who accept the trees on a consignment basis, refused delivery of the gaunt trees.
