Let’s begin this column with a question: Which location on Oahu was once Punahou’s farm, a school for boys and a military academy? Kaimuki High School was there until its current campus was built in 1949.
The oldest school on Oahu, founded in 1833, was on that site until 10 years ago. Today it’s occupied by a middle school and a park. Where is it? That’s what we’ll explore today.
BELT BUCKLE
The topic began with a belt buckle. Emerick LaMontagne wrote and asked about it. “I have a brass belt buckle embossed ‘Honolulu Military Academy.’ It was given to me by the late Hawaii radio personality Harry B. Soria Jr. many years ago.
“According to Harry, this academy was located where Kaimuki Middle School stands today. … Harry’s father, Harry Sr., wore this as part of the uniform when he was a student there. If anyone has more information about this academy, please enlighten us.”
Yes, that’s right. Honolulu Military Academy was between Kilauea Avenue and 18th and 22nd avenues. Diamond Head Memorial Park was immediately adjacent to it, closer to Diamond Head.
Fort Ruger (now Kapiolani Community College) was immediately west of it.
HONOLULU SCHOOL FOR BOYS
That property has an interesting history. In 1911, Charles M. Cooke’s estate donated 14 acres to the Honolulu School for Boys.
Col. Leopold Blackman was principal of the private, residential high school. The site benefited from good tradewinds and a fine view of the ocean.
HONOLULU MILITARY ACADEMY
Five years later, in 1916, the School for Boys evolved into the Honolulu Military Academy, still under the direction of Blackman. Lex Brodie attended the academy, he told me, before Roosevelt opened in 1930.
The academy offered instruction in “preparation for West Point” — academics, athletics and character building.
Historian Rianna Williams said the school had 124 students by 1919. “There were five barracks, including one main building where classes and meals were held. The other barracks held about 20 boys each, with a live-in adult male.
“The rooms were spartan, with a bed, a place for their trunk, and a small table. The trunk was checked every morning for neatness.
“Colonel Blackman lived in a cottage on the campus. He was considered a very strict, professional headmaster. The daily routine was highly regimented, with every change of period announced by a bugle call. …
“It appears that the man who created the academy was also greatly responsible for its demise,” Williams concluded. Many of the teachers stayed only one year because they were forced to live on campus and their lives were also regimented.
Parents objected to Blackman’s harshness and one by one began to withdraw their sons. This parental disapproval was fatal, forcing the school to close.
PUNAHOU FARM
In 1925, Punahou School needed additional boarding facilities for boys, and taking over the Honolulu Military Academy would be a solution to that problem.
In the 1920s many schools focused on practical job skills, and farming was one of them. Punahou Farm had a dairy herd, piggery, apiary and poultry department. The soil was considered good for tilling. Visitors in late 1925 described it as looking “like a prosperous green farm.”
The biggest social event of the year was the December Barn Dance. One held in 1927 attracted over 300 guests, the school yearbook reported.
The interior of the auditorium was decorated to resemble a barn. Farm implements were placed in the corners, sacks of grain were everywhere and the stage had cornstalks and a wagon on either side of the orchestra.
The boys were bused from the farm in Kaimuki to the Punahou Wilder Avenue campus for academics. The transit time was too long, and Punahou Farm was abandoned within a few years.
The property continued housing a few faculty families until it was sold in 1939 to the state for $1.5 million as a site for a public school.
KAIMUKI INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL
By 1939, Kaimuki counted 26,000 residents, and its children needed public schools.
Kaimuki Intermediate School opened on Sept. 5, 1939, to 850 new students. It had 20 classrooms, a cafeteria, shop rooms, tennis courts and a swimming pool.
The ceremony was broadcast live over radio station KGU. The Honolulu Advertiser ran a four-page supplement about the history of Kaimuki, Honolulu’s fastest- growing suburban community, and the new school.
Judge Harry Mills presented a 3-foot key to school Principal James Wilson “to unlock the hearts and minds of your pupils so that education may go hand in hand with the love of, and duty to, our beloved country — the United States of America.”
The school continued its garden, planting radishes, lima beans, beets, carrots, corn, Swiss chard, spinach and other vegetables.
HIGH SCHOOL
Families in the area continued to push for a new high school. McKinley was overcrowded, so the Department of Education in 1942 built an annex of that school next to Kaimuki Intermediate and called it the McKinley Annex School.
After a year the number of students grew to 900 from 600, and its name was changed to Kaimuki High School.
It moved to its current site, between Kaimuki Avenue and Date Street, in March 1948. By 1952 it had a track and football field as well as a 4-acre school farm.
POHUKAINA SCHOOL
Before we finish, there’s one more school that resided at the Honolulu Military Academy site, and it was the oldest school on Oahu.
Pohukaina School moved from Kakaako to Kaimuki in 1980. It was, at the end in 2013, a special-needs school, but it’s history was far more interesting.
It was started by Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Johnson in 1833 for neglected children of Caucasian sailors and Hawaiian women. It opened as the Oahu Charity School, about where Aliiolani Hale is today on King Street.
It attracted students from neighbor islands, Russia and California. In 1913 it moved into Kakaako, where “Mother” Mary Waldron taught fourth grade. Former UH President Fujio Matsuda and Kawaiaha‘o Church pastor Abraham Akaka attended Pohukaina.
Sixty years later Kakaako had changed, and the school focused on special-needs students.
So there you have it. Seven schools have found a home on the site. Next time you drive by Kaimuki Middle School — home of the Voyagers — look in your rearview mirror and visualize the other six schools and the impact their students have gone on to make in the world.
CHARLES M. COOKE ESTATE TIMELINE
>> 1911: Honolulu School for Boys
>> 1916: Honolulu Military Academy
>> 1925: Punahou Farm
>> 1939: Kaimuki Intermediate School
>> 1942: McKinley Annex School
>> 1943: Kaimuki High School
>> 1980: Pohukaina School
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
