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Maui County
Maui TIME
The history of Maui, as told by Time Magazine
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April 05, 2007
Founded by the gravely conservative Henry R. Luce in early 1923,
Time is the nation's oldest and best-known weekly news magazine.
Recently the magazine posted its entire archives free of charge on its
website (www.time.com) so we decided to see how Luce's
establishment-loving reporters and editors saw Maui through the
decades. Here's a little of what we found:
July 8, 1929
"Maui, like all the islands, is rich with pineapples and sugar… The
[Hawai`i] territory's total population is now some 350,000. Caucasians,
though constituting only one-tenth of the populace, dominate. There is
no 'race problem' largely because there has been much intermarriage and
'the colors have run.' Besides 20,000 Hawaiian full-bloods there are
some 25,000 half-castes… In Hawaii, the Japanese are called "the Jews
of the Pacific" because of their ability, eagerness, tenacity at
acquiring the characteristics and culture of another people."
May 12, 1947
"[A 35-year-old ex-G.I. named Woodrow Dodds] hustled over to the
Hawaiian Airlines, Ltd. office, learned that it cost 2? a pound to fly
freight to Wailuku on the island of Maui, 126 miles away. Dodds hopped
over to Wailuku and made a deal with Manager Joe Gehring of Snow White
Laundry to handle all the laundry Dodds could fly over. Then Dodds
bought a used truck, rounded up all of Hilo's dirty laundry and had it
flown to Wailuku."
Apr. 5, 1948
"At a cost of $80,000 and harrowing effort, Henry [Baldwin] built
the 17-mile long Hamakua Ditch to bring irrigation to the cane fields.
With son Frank, he once swam a flooded gulch in order to get to church.
Through such God-fearing boldness, coupled with Yankee-trader
shrewdness, the business prospered, became one of the 'Big Five' which
reach across the biggest part of Hawaii's economy."
Mar. 23, 1959
"Little else disturbs the bustling, multiracial complex of Hawaii
today. Even racial tension, in a spot where there are no fewer than 64
crossbreeds of humans, is less worrisome than that in the U.S. South…
the fabled land of polysyllabic kings, brown-skinned women and
languorous beauty—supercharged with its brilliant mosaic of
cultures—has now opened the door on a new epoch for itself."
Aug. 15, 1960
"Dick [Nixon] and Pat hurried on to Hawaii; spent two days there
island hopping… Inevitably, he was draped with leis, let himself be
kissed by Hawaiian maidens, showed up at a luau wearing a
just-purchased electric-yellow sports shirt, ate gluey poi with his
fingers in native manner… On Maui, he tried his tongue on some
flattering words in Hawaiian: 'Maui no ka oi"—roughly, 'Maui is the
best of all the islands.' It all went over very well."
May 31, 1963
"But it is the island of Maui, half an hour by plane from Honolulu,
which connoisseurs consider the handsomest of the lot… The new
Sheraton-Maui is less expensive but more spectacular. Perched high on
an escarpment of black rock, the 150-room hotel hangs like a scalloped
upside-down cake over the sea, has been so successful that an
additional 60 units have been added to be ready for occupancy by July
1."
Dec. 16, 1966
"Five years ago, two-thirds of Hawaii's visitors saw only Oahu.
Today, two-thirds of them see at least one Neighbor Island. And why
not? Maui and Kauai are only $12.57 and 18 minutes away by DC-9 jet… On
Maui, known as 'The Valley Isle,' mangoes, papaya and passion fruit on
the roadside wait to be plucked by the passing traveler."
Mar. 26, 1979
"Maui is neither easy nor cheap to get to… Explains Elmer F.
Cravalho, 53, the diminutive (5 ft. 5 in.), tough-minded descendent of
Portuguese immigrants who has been Maui's mayor for the past eleven
years: 'We want the people who come to Maui to make a conscious choice
that this is where they want to be. We don't want the people who go for
the rock-bottom cheapest tour package. Maui is only for people who are
willing to make the effort to get here'… Though here and there a
McDonald's, a Pizza Hut, a Baskin-Robbins has sprouted, it is still
possible on Maui to rediscover the idyllic Hawaii of swaying palms and
hips that Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain and Jack London described
so affectionately… One out of every 25 Maui residents is in the real
estate business… Maui boasts some of the world's most exotic women.
Many flashing-eyed, sinuous wahines are hapa-haole, meaning half
Caucasian; others are apparently products of every conceivable ethnic
mix."
June 1, 1981
"Yet amid its travel-brochure lushness, Hawaii is struggling to cope
with a surge in crime, a slump in tourism and the social strains caused
by two decades of rapid growth… For nearly a decade, many Hawaiians
have been pushing to reclaim the lands that were seized from their
ancestors when the U.S. annexed the islands in 1989. 'We were seeing
everything slipping out of our hands,' recalls Charles Kauluwehi
Maxwell, a retired Maui policeman. 'The native Hawaiians felt that the
only thing they had to hang on to was their land.'" MTW
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