Kahuku Ranch: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park

Bae, Sang; Schroeder, Erika

The Kahuku Ranch cultural landscape, part of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, is located in Ka‘ū, a remote and sparsely populated southern district of the Island of Hawai‘i. The approximately 13,402-acre Kahuku Ranch cultural landscape is a part of the original 184,000-acre cattle ranch that assumed the traditional ahupua‘a (land division) boundary of Kahuku and is representative of the development of the island ranching operations through the 20th century. This land parcel stretched from the summit of Mauna Loa to the southern tip of the island in a triangular parcel with a wide base at the ocean. The historic Kahuku Ranch includes within its boundary Mauna Loa’s very active southwest rift zone, a long series of fractures, fissures, craters, cinder cones, lava flows, and faults and ranged from 2,000 to 13,000 feet in elevation, all of which significantly influenced the development of a ranch on the island. Kahuku Ranch is locally significant for its association with the patterns of development in the cattle industry on the Island of Hawai‘i and is particularly representative of the specific period in island ranching when ranching operations transitioned from land-responsive approaches of management, operating within the parameters of natural limitations of the landscape, to more intensive manipulation of the natural environment through the application of “modern,” or contemporary, technology (Criterion A). The period of significance begins in 1912 when Kahuku was purchased as a satellite ranch of Parker Ranch and ends in 1947 when the Parker Ranch sold Kahuku to James Glover. This period reflects the years of development that incorporate early ranching (mid-to-late-nineteenth century), and contemporary knowledge and practice of land use, and signals the transition to an increasingly systematized approach of range management and cultivation. This significance is conveyed through several cultural landscape characteristics, including natural systems and features, spatial organization, circulation, vegetation, buildings and structures, small-scale features, constructed water features, and archaeology, which evaluated together, contribute to the character of the historic district.

Kahuku Ranch: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park

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