Category Archives: History

LuminAria

I found this video of LuminAria from Disney California Adventure Park on YouTube after reading about it on MiceChat. I never saw this show in person (in fact, I wouldn’t make it to DCA until 2016) but I was curious to see what it looked like. This show ran for only one season in 2001 (the year the park opened in 2001).

It’s not a bad show by any means, and I love seeing how Paradise Pier looked like when the park first opened. The smoke must have been awful for those with sensitive lungs though.

USS Olympia in trouble

The cruiser USS Olympia is the oldest steel warship afloat in the world. She was built in San Francisco and commissioned in 1895–making her almost 120 years old. Her career with the U.S. Navy was a long and storied one; she fought in the Spanish-American War in 1898 and saw action during and after World War I before being decommissioned in 1922.

USS Olympia off Mare IslandShe is the last surviving naval ship afloat from the U.S. Navy’s fleet from the Spanish-American War, and the last floating example of a U.S. “Pre-Dreadnought” warship. She was built during an era of transition for the U.S. Navy, as it began to move away from being a coastal defense, commerce raiding navy to an ocean-going, front-line fighting navy. As such, some of her characteristics were contradictory, as the ship somewhat straddled these two roles. For example, she was built with a new type of vertical triple-expansion steam engines, among the most powerful mounted on a U.S. Naval ship at the time.  She was also one of the first ships to have electricity and power-steering gear. Yet, at the same time she still had a set of sails she could mount on her masts in case her powerful engines failed. She was also unique in another respect: USS Olympia was built as an effective commerce raiding cruiser, and at the time of her design it was expected that a number of ships would be built based on Olympia‘s design. However, no further Olympia-class ships were ever built, because the Navy was moving away from commerce cruisers toward larger, more powerful battleships and armored cruisers.

"You may fire when ready, Gridley."

Despite this, Olympia was an effective ship. Upon her commissioning in 1895, she was assigned to the Asiatic Squadron, which was at the time was one of the fleets the U.S. Navy operated in the Pacific Ocean. When the U.S. declared war on Spain in 1898, the three-year-old ship was serving as flagship of the squadron. Her most significant action during the war her participation in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, during which the Asiatic Squadron. Leading the line of battle of the Asiatic Fleet into Manila Bay, it was on her decks that the squadron’s leader, Commodore Dewey, opened the battle by giving his now immortalized order, “You may fire when ready, Gridley.” (This scene is depicted in the painting at left.) With that, Captain Charles “Steve” Gridley, commanding officer of the USS Olympia, opened fire from her 8″ inch main battery and led in the destruction of seven of the thirteen ships of the Spanish fleet. After winning the battle, the squadron assisted in the capture of Manila itself.

She served her country for more than two decades after the Spanish-American War. During World War I, she escorted convoys and helped back an ill-fated Allied invasion of Russia in May 1918 in an ill-fated attempt to stop the Russian bolsheviks from taking over the country.

One of her last and most solemn official acts occurred in 1921, when she was sent to Le Havre, France to retrieve the remains of the Unknown Soldier. On the trip back to the U.S., she encountered a large storm and almost sank; however, she delivered the remains of the soldier to Washington D.C. in November 1921. The remains are now interred at the Arlington National Cemetary. Olympia decommissioned for the last time the following year.

She was laid up in reserve until 1957, when the government transferred the ship to the Cruiser Olympia Association; the association restored the ship to her appearance during the Spanish-American War and opened her as a museum in Philidelphia. However, maintaining a century-old ship is a very expensive business, and the current owner of the ship, the Independence Seaport Museum, announced earlier this year that they can no longer afford to maintain the ship, which is in need of at least $10 million in repairs to prevent her hull from deteriorating. If this money cannot be raised, the Olympia likely will be sunk as an artificial reef.

Olympia is a unique relic of her era and should not be sunk as a reef! To learn how you can help save her, visit the Friends of the Cruise Olympia and donate a small amount to make sure future generations will be able to walk her decks and experience a living piece of American history.

Caves of Hawaii part 1

(Photo from the Bishop Museum’s collections)

Beneath Manoa, there exists a huge but relatively unknown system of underground caves and water caverns centered roughly at the intersection of University Avenue and King Street.

Well, at least the system used to be huge. During the 1920s, the cave system stretched at least as far north as the University of Hawaii’s upper campus, and at least as far south as Kapiolani Boulevard, and prior to that the system was probably even more extensive.

It was a very beautiful system. Water from these caves fed springs that in turn fed beautiful ponds. These ponds were prized by Manoa residents for their clean water and beautiful fish.

Today, some of the caves are still there (most notably the Moiliili Water Cave beneath University Avenue), but much of the system was destroyed as Honolulu urbanized.

The greatest damage to the system was done in 1934, when a construction project downslope of the cave system struck the caverns, causing much of the water in the caves to drain before the leak was sealed. The result was nothing short of an economic disaster. The caves’ water spewed from sidewalks, houses and trees sank, and water and gas lines ruptured.

As the water level dropped, the ponds of Manoa disappeared almost immediately (along with most of their fish). The loss of water caused the land in Moiliili to become unstable, and sinkholes appeared in many areas. In one instance, an entire store collapsed into a sinkhole. Interestingly, investigators saw some of the fish that disappeared from the former ponds swimming inside that particular sinkhole.

As urbanization increased, many parts of the old cave system were destroyed or filled in. For example, it is unknown whether the portion of the cave system underneath the University of Hawaii’s upper and lower campuses still exist. Today, only one of these caves remains readily accessible: the Moiliili Water Cave.

Interestingly, aside from some construction fill, the Moiliili Water Cave beneath University Avenue is surprisingly unpolluted (its bacteria counts have actually been on the decline in recent years, and is apparently significantly lower than, say, Manoa Stream), its water crystal-clear and its water very cool to the touch. In fact, fish still swim in the cave’s waters. This cave is the only known remaining portion of the old cave system today (though other parts of the cave system, near where the Stan Sheriff Center now stands, were known to exist as recently as 1979, complete with a whole pond full of catfish in one part of the cave; however, it is unknown whether these caves were destroyed during the development of UH’s current athletic complex and lower campus parking lot), and it should be preserved and protected in the interests of future generations and history fanatics like me.

MODERN CONNECTION: Many people were alarmed when, this past June, the city released this photo of what a rail system passing through Moiliili would look like. Many people wondered why they couldn’t just stick the rail system underground like how they’re proposing to do it in downtown Honolulu. The main reason why they can’t stick the railroad underground in Moiliili is because of the underground caverns in the area–that is, a subway tunnel in the area would 1) destroy the cave system (though I doubt the city cared about that), 2) would likely be flooded due to the low water table in the area, and 3) would just be too expensive.