The growth of a village, Part 1

 

Before 1900, there were only two privately owned parcels of land in the area of what is now Volcano Village. Development was limited by the lack of roads and the forest preserves which surrounded the area.  

One of those early homes was the mountain residence of William H. Shipman, who in 1882 had bought the ahupuaʻa lands of Keaʻau at public auction and built a mountain home at the 29-mile mark of Volcano Road on the makai side of Volcano Road. The other was a 22-acre parcel that in 1898, Shipman sold to C.C. Kennedy, a sugar mill manager in Hilo.

All that began to change after the turn of the century when the newly formed territorial government started to sell off some of its holdings in the area and open them to settlement. The first seven tracts, consisting of about 200 acres each, were awarded on April Fools’ Day, 1902. Collectively, the area was known as Kīlauea Settlement lots. Each lot cost $600.

The first smaller lots of about five acres were offered for sale in December 1907, when engineer Thomas Cook began surveying what became Volcano’s first subdivision, the ʻŌlaʻa Summer Lots. The 19 successful bidders paid between $45 and $305 for their lots and were required to start improvements immediately, have a house ready for occupancy within two years and plant at least 25 ornamental or fruit trees on each acre of their properties.

Homes started going up, and auctions of more ʻŌlaʻa Summer Lots continued in the next few years – so much so that over 75 people claimed residency by 1910, even though most of them likely spent most of their time in Hilo or elsewhere. In 1912 another 118 lots of about 3.5 acres each went up for sale, and almost all brought winning bids more than the asking price, sometimes two or three times more, even though many of them could only be reached by foot trails through the forest.

The race to subdivide and develop village lands was on.

In just a few years starting about 1917, lots were being bought and homes built at a rapid pace. A.J. MacKenzie, one of the original purchasers of those 200-acre tracts, began selling off pieces of his property, creating the Mariner Tract subdivision. Bishop Estate began selling one-acre lots with a 250-foot frontage along Volcano Road. The First Trust Co. bought a 15-acre parcel of Shipman property across from the intersection of Wright Road and Volcano Road and began selling lots of about 19,800 square feet, a half an acre.
 
As the community continued growing, it was showing signs of some of the things the town would come to be known for: compassion, unity and a desire to preserve and grow the forest setting around them. Kent Warshauer notes that in August 1910, for instance, a number of lot owners and their guests got together for a belated Arbor Day celebration to plant 73 Japanese cedar trees on one neighbor’s lot.

There was another thing that heralded what the future might bring: the first resale of a 4.5-acre lot from the original auction was resold for more than $1,000 to a former tobacco plantation owner in Hamakua who planted strawberries on it, helping to attract the first early farmers to Volcano. Japanese farmers, ending their service on sugar plantations, began moving into the area, growing thinks like corn, cabbages, lettuce, rrhubarb, plums and more.

Volcano’s first guest facility, the Crater Hotel, was built in 1911 at what is now the south end of Old Volcano Road, offering lodging at a price lower ($3.50 per night) than Volcano House. By 1919 there was another option for low-budget visitors: Hilo merchant T.A. Dranga opened a tent city next to the Crater Hotel. It offered wooden floors and tents to host campers. In one of the tents, Dranga also opened the first store in Volcano, selling everything from groceries to dry good, as well as ice cream, sodas, cigars, and tobacco. The store didn’t last long, however.  By the end of its first summer Dranga’s property was taken back by a trust company which assumed control in order to pay off his creditors.

By 1920 there were numerous homes, a school, a dozen or more farms, a dairy, a YMCA camp, some vacation homes and a golf course. The village continued to grow slowly in the 1920s. In 1926, for example, George Vicars bought 250 acres from G.S. McKenzie, another one of the original landowners, and decided to develop the property as the Hawaii Country Club, which would include an 18-hole golf course, a club house and a botanical garden. Within a year 76 house lots had been surveyed and put on sale. At the same time the First Trust Company of Hilo opened the Haunani lots just above Kīlauea road. Forty-six lots ranging from 14,000 to 16,000 square feet sold out in a little over a week. That was followed in 1927 by the opening of the Kalani Honua subdivision with lots ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 square feet and priced from $175 to $750.  That was quickly followed by the opening of the Hale ʻŌhiʻa subdivision on the mauka side of Volcano Road.

Development really took off in the 1990s. By then there were seven restaurants in the village and the number of rooms available for visitors had more than doubled from the previous decade.