Kirstin Downey: How Digital Experts Managed To Save Some Of The History Of Lahaina
The digitized records will provide a window into Lahaina鈥檚 past at a time the town鈥檚 future remains in question.
September 1, 2024 · 7 min read
About the Author
Kirstin Downey, a former Civil Beat reporter, is a regular contributing columnist specializing in history, culture and the arts, and the occasional political issue. A former Washington Post reporter and author of several books, she splits her time between Hawaii and Washington, D.C. Opinions are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect Civil Beat鈥檚 views. You can reach her by email at kdowney@civilbeat.org.
The digitized records will provide a window into Lahaina鈥檚 past at a time the town鈥檚 future remains in question.
Paradise has a price: Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods and wildfires are not only risks to our lives but also to the cherished objects we own.
This truth swept the islands with all its finality in Lahaina one year ago.
These threats underscore the value of taking steps to preserve important things. One good piece of news recently emerged when it was reported that, remarkably, about a 10th of the documents held by the , a historic preservation group, had survived the fire, electronically at least.
Thanks to fortunate happenstance, and through the combined efforts of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Hawaii Tourism Authority, thousands of documents that had been housed at the foundation鈥檚 office have been scanned, digitized and are now being made available to the public.
The need to preserve precious things is high on my own mind now. My vivacious and outgoing mother, Melinda Hoppe Young, died recently. A mother of four and grandmother of eight, she had become a complete invalid. She finally slipped away on May 25 after three years of wonderful care at Leahi Hospital. That left me, her only family member still living in Hawaii, in charge of handling the possessions she left behind. After years of bad health, Mother didn鈥檛 leave much, except for some old family papers and a jumbled collection of photographs.
The Lahaina Restoration Foundation鈥檚 collection of documents and antique objects, on the other hand, numbered in the tens of thousands on Aug. 7, 2023, the day before the fire torched almost all of it. Nearly 90% of its collection was destroyed in the blaze.
But early this month, the that a substantial part of Lahaina Restoration Foundation鈥檚 remaining records are being posted and made available to the public on its website, an increasingly comprehensive central repository of documents related to Hawaii. This will include 298 historic pictures of Lahaina from 1900 to 1992, correspondence to and from Maui鈥檚 influential Baldwin family and housing records of , which employed thousands of immigrant workers over its 130 years of existence.
Papakilo will be providing a window into Lahaina鈥檚 past at a time the town鈥檚 future remains in question.
Lahaina Restoration Foundation was founded in 1962 as Maui鈥檚 sugarcane industry succumbed to foreign imports, and civic leaders began to look to tourism for economic survival. Community residents rallied to defend and preserve Lahaina鈥檚 historic core from what they feared would be an onslaught of new development. Capitalizing on the burgeoning historic preservation movement nationwide, they succeeded in preserving many of Lahaina鈥檚 iconic buildings, transforming the town into a favorite tourist destination for millions of people.
Over the years, the daily pressures of greeting hordes of tourists and visitors while managing 14 historic sites and six museums in Lahaina left the Restoration Foundation鈥檚 leaders with very little time for organizing and cataloging the mountain of historic relics and archival materials that had passed into their hands.
In February 2020, Kale Hannahs, Papakilo鈥檚 database systems administrator and the driving force behind the expansion of the information clearinghouse, contacted the foundation and asked officials there to begin contributing their information electronically on the Papakilo site so more people could access the unique documents directly. Hannahs had reached out to the foundation as part of a statewide campaign he was spearheading to gather information held in dispersed and far-flung archival locations on different islands.
For more than 16 years, Hannahs has been building and expanding the Papakilo site, which started as a one-stop shop to share things like environmental assessment reports and has grown to include documents from 19 participating organizations. It is probably most famous for housing an ever-expanding Hawaiian language newspaper collection that is believed to be one of the largest collections of Indigenous newspapers in the United States.
Gathering this information is 鈥渘ot just a passion, but also a kuleana,鈥 Hannahs said recently.
Theo Morrison and Kimberly Flook, the Lahaina Restoration Foundation鈥檚 directors, were immediately interested in getting involved but were intimidated by how much would need to be done with their limited staff. They weren鈥檛 even exactly sure how to go about the task of digitizing so much information.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have the equipment in the early days or the money wasn鈥檛 available,鈥 Morrison recalled.
They had had one important early foray on this front in producing what is called the Windley collection, named for one of the group鈥檚 earliest and most passionate supporters. In the 1960s, Larry Windley, a charismatic daredevil in Lahaina who had suffered a spinal cord injury while diving and had become disabled, had turned his energies into traveling the state to gather historic information about Maui鈥檚 history, creating an extensive chronological record of events on the island.
In 1969, Windley was lost at sea on a sailboat. Barbara Sharp, a foundation volunteer, was inspired to begin laboriously typing Windley鈥檚 notes into a computer database. It took four years. It was a monumental project for its day. In 1997, the foundation began making the information available to researchers who were studying Maui history, according to news reports.
But moving those efforts into the modern era, in the context of the entire collection, was a daunting prospect. They would need to learn how to scan documents, organize them electronically and make them digitally searchable.
The next month, soon after Hannahs鈥 visit, Covid struck. The pandemic induced a government shutdown. Museum visitors and their tourist dollars disappeared.
That created a crisis for the foundation, which faced the prospect of laying off its staff. But government funding came through in the form of the Payroll Protection Program, which allowed it to keep some staff.
Morrison and Flook used the opportunity to modernize their archival methods. Staff members who normally guided tours instead studied up on best practices in maintaining archival collections. They began pulling boxes out of closets, attics and basements, cataloging what they found and scanning the documents.
鈥淚t was the silver lining of Covid,鈥 Flook said.
As it turned out, these precise records proved invaluable to the foundation in documenting the value of its holdings for insurance claims following the fire.
More help appeared as the pandemic wore on. In June 2021, the , which rewarded tourists for participating in volunteer activities while they were visiting the islands.
The Lahaina Restoration Foundation created a hands-on history program to take advantage of this opportunity. Groups of tourists began showing up at the foundation鈥檚 museums four times a week to help with the work. Local residents pitched in, too. In all, more than 300 people assisted with the project, Flook recalled. Some people particularly liked scanning old documents.
By the end of the month, Hannahs expects that about 1,500 photos and documents about Lahaina will be posted on the Papakilo website.
That will allow people from Lahaina, including those who have lost everything and those who loved the memory of Lahaina, to search out and discover things that many people thought had disappeared forever.
OHA Board Chair Carmen 鈥淗ulu鈥 Lindsey called the Lahaina project a 鈥渢imely example of the importance of digitizing historic documents.鈥
Researching this column has affected me as well. I鈥檝e begun scanning all my mother鈥檚 photographs. It鈥檚 allowing me to relive the family of my childhood and see how many of our happiest memories happened when people were wearing bathing suits, smiling and playing by the water.
We live with risks but also co-exist with so much natural beauty here in Hawaii. Saving those old pictures is reminding me of that.
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ContributeAbout the Author
Kirstin Downey, a former Civil Beat reporter, is a regular contributing columnist specializing in history, culture and the arts, and the occasional political issue. A former Washington Post reporter and author of several books, she splits her time between Hawaii and Washington, D.C. Opinions are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect Civil Beat鈥檚 views. You can reach her by email at kdowney@civilbeat.org.
Latest Comments (0)
Having gone through Hurricanes Iwa and Iniki brought home how precious and precarious our history is. I learned that hoarding things in paper is pointless in our environment and that if you share and things happen to your collection, you have those you passed things on to for copies. My dad lost his songbook to the ocean surge in Iwa. It was a treasure of Hawaiian and Hapa Haole songs of the early to mid 20th century. All the songs of the war era are rarely heard anymore. His cousin was able to copy his for my dad and later I discovered my mother, who typed it up in the first place, had a copy of the original including the cover my dad drew. She was able to provide the entire family with song books. In this digital age, it is easy to lose everything up there in the cloud, so the physical materials still have value as the back up of the back up. Please support digitization and respect and support those that maintain the physical collections. It is costly. Don't take for granted our precious's history.
Elepaio · 4 months ago
Recovery from trauma has many dimensions. Hope this contributes to the healing of those who experienced loss due to the L脛聛haina wildfire. I find myself sharing the emotions that Gus Walz must have felt as he watched his dad, VP candidate Tim Walt, address the Democratic National Convention...."That脢禄s my son!!!!" Kale脢禄s achievements in music are well known, but he has also humbly built the Papakilo Database into one of OHA脢禄s signature contributions to our community. Right on son! Proud of you.
Kahookele · 4 months ago
Thanks for this update on the status of restoration, Kirstin. Quite a labor of love going on with this project. I recently digitized all of my family photos and sent them to family members on thumb drives. Condolences on the loss of your mom.
Carbonius1 · 4 months ago
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