Recalling Maui’s near and distant past, compiled from Honolulu Star-Advertiser archives:
30 years ago …
Two dozen Maui residents picketed the road to Kahului Airport and the terminal to protest proposals to allow international flights. The protest was sparked by a decision of the Japanese Transport Ministry to allow Japan Airlines to have flights into Kahului. But it is part of a continuing dispute involving residents living near the airport, a Hawaiian rights group, the Sierra Club and Maui Malama Pono.
County Corporation Counsel Fred Rohlfing said the experience at mainland airports raises a home-rule issue for Maui residents hoping to restrict growth at the airport. On the mainland most airports are controlled by municipal authorities, allowing for some level of local input on airport growth, he said. But in Hawaii the state controls the airports.
In preparing a master plan for Kahului, Rohlfing said, “They never held a public hearing. They never paid attention to the general community of Maui.”
80 years ago …
Maui’s blackout tonight was 100% complete except for harbor buoys and lighthouses. Valley Islanders entered into the spirit of the blackouts and were on edge from darkness until the Army bombers dropped their flares, signaling the end of the blackout.
By 7:30 p.m. automobiles were packed solid along the upgrade on the new Kahului-Wailuku highway so that they might have a commanding view of the large valley between Haleakala and the West Maui Mountains, a region that comprises the well-lit communities of Paia, Kahului, Puunene, Makawao and the upper Kula region. At about the same time, townfolk from Wailuku started trekking by the hundreds into the exclusive Sandhills region where they could look down not only on the scene, but on Wailuku as well. The bridge over the new highway was packed solid with people. Other people drove up the Haleakala summit road where most of Maui and Lanai lay in their vision.
First sign of the impending blackout was the appearance of planes over Kahului at 8:25 p.m., appearing with running lights, which were quickly extinguished. After the announcement to black out, street lights were turned on and off twice while plantation whistles and locomotives began their din. About 15 minutes before the blackout, the seven or eight destroyers of the fleet remaining at Lahaina blacked out.
At the end of the blackout, flares were dropped on the West Maui side of the island, two over Kahului and two along the Spreckelsville coast. The two dropped over Kahului illuminated the broad expanse of roofs on the Maui Pineapple cannery and the Pacific Guano & Fertilizer works.
