|
Identification:
|
Preferred Structure Name:
| Halema'uma'u Trail
|
Structure Number:
| TR5
|
Other Structure Name(s):
|
|
Other Structure Name(s)
|
| No records. |
|
Park:
| Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
|
Historic District:
|
|
Historic District
|
1.
|
Crater Rim Historic District
|
|
Structure State:
| Hawaii
|
Structure County:
| Hawaii
|
Region:
| Pacific West
|
Cluster:
| Pacific Islands
|
Administrative Unit:
| Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
|
LCS ID:
| 058432
|
Historical Significance:
|
National Register Status:
| Determined Eligible - SHPO
|
National Register Date:
| 10/11/2006
|
National Historic Landmark?:
| No
|
Significance Level:
| State
|
Short Significance Description:
| The Crater Rim Historic District is significant at the state level under Criteria A and C. The period of significance spans the years 1916 to 1941.
Trail is associated with early park development. Constructed to provide visitor access into Kilauea Caldera.
|
Long Significance Description:
| The Crater Rim Historic District is significant at the state level under Criterion A, association with a historic event or pattern of events, for its association with early park planning at Hawaii National Park (HNP) and with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) program, and under Criterion C, distinctive architectural design, because its features exemplify the “Park Service Rustic” style and naturalistic landscape architecture perpetuated by the NPS in the period between the First and Second World Wars. The period of significance spans the years 1916 to 1941, covering the years of primary park development and CCC involvement. Although some of the contributors have been slightly altered, the district overall retains sufficient integrity for listing.
In association with the events of the American Park Movement and early NPS master planning (Criterion A), the Crater Rim Historic District is significant as an integral part of the master plan of Hawaii National Park. When Hawaii National Park opened in 1916, the primary attraction was the volcanic activity in Kilauea Caldera. Completing a vehicular road around the crater’s edge and constructing administrative facilities and visitor amenities along this road became two of the park’s top priorities. Eventually called Crater Rim Drive, the Crater Road evolved during the park’s early decades into a full-circle loop around the crater.
Crater Rim Historic District is also significant for its association with the Civilian Conservation Corps program (Criterion A). By the termination of the program in 1942, they had constructed all types of buildings at the park, including comfort stations, employee housing, garages, barracks, trailside shelters, and a visitor center and museum.
In association with significant design and construction (Criterion C), the Crater Rim Historic District is an outstanding example of park landscape design, embodying the complimentary styles of rustic architecture and naturalistic landscape architecture. Based on eighteenth-century picturesque and nineteenth-century naturalistic design theories, the rustic and naturalistic styles were used extensively in NPS architecture and landscape architecture of the 1920s and 1930s. This design era coincides with the most significant period of development within NPS history, a time when the NPS created what is now recognized as the hallmark style for developments within natural areas, in order to preserve their scenic beauty.
Because Hawaii’s emerging regionalism emphasized climate, landscape, and culture, it provided Park Service and HNP officials with a local style already conforming to the Park Service Rustic ideology. Moreover, the park needed a considerable amount of employee housing, for which the Hawaiian style was highly relevant. As a result, pre-WWII buildings at HNP share characteristics with mainstream Hawaiian design of the period. Typical features of these Hawaiian Park Service Rustic buildings include widespread use of stone or lava rock for walls, columns, chimneys, or planters; prominent metal-clad hip or gable-on-hip roofs with wide eaves; a large number of windows, usually casement or double-hung; horizontal wood clapboards in a pattern of alternating sizes; and varying styles of porches.
|
Construction Period:
|
Construction Period:
| Historic
|
Chronology:
|
|
Physical Event
| Begin Year
| Begin Year AD/BC
| End Year
| End Year AD/BC
| Designer
| Designer Occupation
|
1.
|
Built
|
1930
|
AD
|
|
|
|
|
|
Function and Use:
|
Primary Historic Function:
| Hiking Trail
|
Primary Current Use:
| Hiking Trail
|
Structure Contains Museum Collections?:
| No
|
Other Functions or Uses:
|
|
Other Function(s) or Use(s)
| Historic or Current
|
| No records. |
|
Physical Description:
|
Structure Type:
| Trail/Walk
|
Material(s):
|
|
Structural Component(s)
| Material(s)
|
1.
|
Superstructure
|
Asphalt
|
2.
|
Superstructure
|
Stone
|
|
Short Physical Description:
| 3.5 mile trail (mostly across the Kilauea Caldera lava lake floor) from park headquarters to the Halema'uma'a overlook and beyond where it meets the Crater Rim Trail at the southern edge of the Kilauea Caldera south of the Halema'uma'u Crater.
|
Long Physical Description:
| One of the earliest trails at Kilauea was a footpath that descended from the Volcano House and struck out directly across the lava beds to Haqlema'uma'u Crater. Before the roads were built, this was the primary acess to the "fire pit." Early Volcano House register entries refer to the trail as "The Worlds Weirdest Walk," in reference to the bizarre landscape created by the various lava flows. The alignment of the trail across the floor of the caldera has changed from time to time in response to new lava flows, but the trail is essentially the same as it was in the earliest years of tourist travel to the volcano.
|