In the Middle of an Island, in the Middle of a Blue Vast Ocean...

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Is situated the Town of Wahiawa and 5 miles to the south, her much younger sister, Mililani. This past Sunday, I needed to go to Schofield Barracks a large military, Army installation located about 20 miles north of Honolulu. After taking care of business, I decided to take a stroll around the town of Wahiawa located about ½ mile outside the gates.

The smallish town of Wahiawa was founded by a group of 7 homesteaders from California, in about the 1890’s. Wahiawa literally means “place of loud noise” which is a mystery as it located in a flat plain-like located just about the center of the island of Oahu. The group took to bottling some pineapples they grew, to sell and of course the rest is history. For at least 70 years after the founding of Wahiawa, Pineapples have always internationally been associated with Hawaii. Three large companies were involved in the industry such as Libby’s, Del Monte and Dole.

During the late 1939’s, the Army started to build one of the largest American Army bases named Schofield Barracks and adjacent to it the Wheeler Air Force bases. Just about the early 1940’s Pearl Harbor was attacked and also the lesser known Wheeler Air Force base, in order to disable the Americans from pursuing the Japanese attackers. I imagine during the War years, the population of these Military Bases swelled, as many were trained or based there to participate in the Pacific War Campaign.

As for the town’s name meaning “place of loud noises” though named during the 1890’s , it may have fulfilled a prophesy 50 years after, as I imagined Wahiawa which G.I.’s may have flocked to for entertainment as well as Pineapple Workers within Wahiawa and nearby Plantation Camps, may have caused quite a ruckus in the town’s heyday.

Today with the Pineapple and Sugar industries practically kaput, and the trip to Honolulu is only 20 minutes away, due to the new and improved freeway, the town has become quite tamed with not much growth, yet still surviving and thriving. It’s not a place one would find touted in the Travel guides, but since most buses passes through it to go to the North Shore, perhaps a few tourists may debark for a lunch break for the familiar comfort fast food joints that line the highway. Several older buildings with some charm and character still survive and are sprinkled here and there, but the more dull, blockish, gray or beige buildings of the 50’s to 80’s seem to dominate. Business which one would associate G.I.’s whiling away their off hours at, are not as prevalent, as one may imagine. In fact along, California Ave. a long stretch of road, running East and West, was pretty much populated with churches, Buddhist and Christian.

There was even a tiny site along the sidewalk where there were situated 2 large rocks, called the Healing Stones and revered by the Indigenous Hawaiian population as having great mystic and religious powers and are frequently made offerings to. A strange twist to the situation is, that a small local Hindu population, about 20 years ago, also felt the Stones had some strong connection to one of their deities, Shiva, also started to honor them also. This sometimes led to conflicts between the two groups, as they had differing views of how to best show reverence to the stones. However, they also were able to come to peaceful compromises on the matter also. If one wants to read more on this, he can Google “Healing Stones Wahiawa”.

As the hand writing on the wall got clearer and clearer about 30 years ago, that Pineapple and Sugar growing could no longer survive the competing cheaper labor from overseas, some of the abandoned fields were turned to Subdivisions, mostly bedroom communities for Honolulu. One such town, is Mililani, a site about 5 miles south of Wahiawa, which at the present is still booming. Attached are photos of Wahiawa and Mililani. About ¾ of the way, I’m also inserting some photos of Honolulu, particularly of a block that just sported some new buildings. Often I’m told by ex-pats, that they don’t recognize many of the sites, I’ve posted photos of, even though they’ve only been away for 5 years or so. Often seeing the buildings come up gradually, I take it for granted, not realizing how much of a change, they are creating in the Honolulu face and skyline.

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