#Kona – Historic Hawaii Foundation

Maile Melrose and her Passion to Preserve Kona

June 23, 2020: Hawai‘i Public Radio’s Ku‘uwehi Hiraishi interviews Maile Melrose about her family's experience with the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 which took the life of her mother’s brother. Click here to listen. April 23, 2020: Maile Melrose is a woman wedded to place. As a multi-generational kama‘āina of South Kona, Melrose has committed her life to protecting and perpetuating the history, flora and fauna of the Kona District. She is a highly respected historian, researcher, author, speaker and noted living history storyteller with a background in Anthropology and Hawaiian Studies. Maile is the great-granddaughter of Henry Nicholas Greenwell, founder of the H.N. Greenwell Store, the oldest surviving store in Kona. Considered one of Kona’s living treasures, Maile holds deep knowledge of Kona's families, places, businesses and history. With her understanding of intricate relationships between places and people, Maile is able to weave a complex narrative about the people who have shaped this incredible history. Her work highlights the Hawaiian families of the Kona ahupua‘a and their stories and traditions that have persisted through the disruption of Western Contact, the achievements of European adventurers in their curiosity about the Hawaiian Islands through the 1800s, as well as the families who shape Kona's landmark agricultural industries, ranching and coffee. Renowned for her storytelling skills, as a volunteer of the Kona Historical Society and Living History Museum, Maile inspires and educates visitors with place-based lore. Her passion is evident in her performances in the Society’s cemetery tours and historical Jeep Tours. In the Hanohano ‘o Kona Lecture Series, Maile shares her knowledge of Kona's natural history and unique bird and plant species. She has published stories of Kona in online form for several years via KHS' [...]

Preserving the Kona Way of Life

Living History in Kona by Christine Thomas At its root, Kona remains a committed farming and ranching community. While the coast may be dotted with visitors and resorts, the mauka region is dedicated to growing crops,raising cattle and working the land. Housed in the old H. N. Greenwell general store in Kealakekua, the Kona Historical Society (KHS) upholds the mission of preserving Kona’s past to share it with future generations. It manages a robust Kona-centered archive and two historic sites--the Greenwell Store and adjacent Uchida Coffee farm, both run as living history museums. When KHS acquired the 7-acre coffee farm that had been run by the Uchida family for three generations in 1996, preservation was the goal. KHS decided to not only preserve the coffee mill, but the entire farm as a second living history museum to showcase the way of life of generations of Kona residents. Historic Hawaii Foundation (HHF) helped KHS find consultants and conservators to help bring the farm back into working order, restore the orchards and 100-year-old trees, and create an unforgettable experience that brings visitors back to the 1920‘s-1940‘s era of the farm during the coffee heyday. The property was painstakingly repaired to ensure historical accuracy, and today even includes chickens and a donkey, which would once have been used to pack and deliver bags of coffee. HHF continues to help celebrate and acknowledge volunteers and community members who actively preserve the Kona way of life, the way generations of Kona residents were raised. Farms provided a lasting foundation and ethic of hard work that can be seen in such pioneering families as the Uchidas. What was a way of life then, for many Kona residents, still is. Fast [...]