Recalling Maui’s near and distant past, compiled from Honolulu Star-Advertiser archives:
30 years ago …
State airports officials opened a new $750,000 alternate route around the end of Kahului Airport’s runway to allow East Maui residents to drive into Kahului.
The perimeter road replaced the old Haleakala Highway extension that was closed by construction of a 300-foot safety zone at the south end of the main runway. When the old highway segment was closed, traffic jams on Hana Highway caused protests that led Gov. John Waihee to order construction of the perimeter road.
60 years ago …
Members of the board of trustees of Maui Community Hospitals voted 8-1 for the “orderly dissolution” of the 20-bed Hana Hospital.
Trustee Thomas S. Yagi pointed out that most of the Hana district people are using Central Maui Memorial Hospital facilities in Wailuku and are not supporting their own Hana hospital. He said the average patient load has dropped from eight in 1956 to two at the present time. The hospital loses an average of $30,000 a year.
70 years ago …
Harold W. Rice, former senator from Maui and chairman of a Democratic harmony committee, appeared before the party’s Oahu county committee and expressed the opinion Democrats should campaign in the next elections for a horse racing bill.
“We have to give tourists some amusement. We can’t just bring them to Hawaii and then dump them at the Royal Hawaiian,” he said.
110 years ago …
“Every stick of clothes I owned except which I had on my back was left aboard, and say, I had three shirts which I’d never won that I was going to splurge with when we went ashore.” The spokesman was one of the members of the wrecked British bark Alexander Black, which is now being ripped to pieces on the reef off Paia.
The sailors state that their captain expected to drop anchor at the Maui port, but when approaching port the winds shifted and the vessel was caught, and then came a rainstorm blotting out the shoreline. The ship drifted, and then came the order to get the boats ready, for the sea was running high. The vessel struck, and seas at once swept over the bark.
The captain gave the order to leave the ship, and without getting any of their belongings, they manned the boats and got ashore through rough seas. The only thing that the Hawaiian sailors who accompanied the captain back aboard got was a cork leg which belonged to the cook, who died on the voyage from Chile to Kahului.
