The following is a press release written by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs:

Release of the Historic Lahaina Photography Collection will go live on the one-year anniversary of the Maui wildfires

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs will release the first of five digitized historic Lahaina collections on its Papakilo Database tomorrow, the result of a collaborative partnership with the Lahaina Restoration Foundation (LRF).

LRF was critically affected by the Maui wildfires that tore through Lahaina with eight historic sites owned by the foundation either destroyed or critically damaged, including the Baldwin Home Museum and the historic Lahaina Courthouse. Tens of thousands of objects and archives were lost.

In 2022, LRF marked its 60-year anniversary by agreeing to a partnership with OHA that would assist LRF with the digitization of various collections within its archives, including the Baldwin Family Collections, the Historic Lahaina Photograph Collection and the Pioneer Mill Collections. In return, the agreement would provide OHA with non-exclusive dissemination rights to feature selected collections within the Papakilo Database, a free online digital archive consisting of 1.2 million historical Hawaiian documents.

Fortunately, the digitization process was completed before the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires, which saw LRF lose roughly 95 percent of its collections including 100 percent of the physical archives involved in the OHA partnership.

“The digitization done with the OHA partnership literally saved irreplaceable handwritten personal thoughts, emotions and stories from Lahaina’s past,” said Theo Morrison, executive director of LRF. “My advice to others would be that safeguarding the tangible objects of the past with which we are entrusted needs to be a daily priority.”

The first of the five collections will go live tomorrow in remembrance of the one-year anniversary of the wildfires. The Historic Lahaina Photography collection consists of 298 historic photos of places and people in the Lahaina area ranging from 1900–1992. The photos range from a picture of the renowned Lahaina Banyan Tree in 1908 to a photo of the 1943 Lahaina Memorial Day Parade.

The release of the Historic Lahaina Photography collection will be followed by the Baldwin Photography Collection (80 records), Baldwin Letter Collection (167 records), Pioneer Mill Housing Maps Collection (74 records) and the Pioneer Mill Housing Records Collection (879 records). All the remaining collections are slated to be released later this month.

“While we are all devastated by the destruction caused by the wildfires, OHA’s partnership with the Lahaina Restoration Foundation serves as a timely example of the importance of digitizing historic documents for the purpose of preserving Hawaiʻi’s history to be accessed and treasured by future generations,” said OHA Board Chair Carmen “Hulu” Lindsey.

“The purpose of the Papakilo Database is to serve as a waihona (repository) of the life experiences and manaʻo of our kūpuna for the purpose of educating and guiding future generations. The collections that were preserved by LRF’s partnership with OHA will be one of the many foundational pieces that will support Lahaina’s residents as they rebuild and redefine their future.”

To view the Historic Lahaina Photography Collection, log on to www.papakilodatabase.com.