Remembering Iosepa More Than a Century Ago, a Small Group of Native Hawaiians Left the Islands to Found a Tiny Town in Utah

Send to printer Close window Remembering Iosepa More than a century ago, a small group of Native Hawaiians left the Islands to found a tiny town in Utah. This is their story. SARAH MILEY A rusty fire hydrant is one of the few remaining signs of the abandoned Hawaiian settlement of Iosepa. PHOTO: MAEGAN BURR, TOOELE TRANSCRIPT BULLETIN Arrival of the Hawaiians From 1889 to 1917, hundreds of Pacific Islanders lived, toiled and some died in Skull Valley, Utah. The remote valley is about 75 miles southwest of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ headquarters in Salt Lake City, and it was a stark contrast to their Island home. They traded rain forests for juniper and sage brush, the blue Pacific for the Great Salt Lake—a remnant of the giant Lake Bonneville. Most of the settlers were Native Hawaiians, who had been converted to Mormonism by missionaries and had first gathered on Lanai and then at Laie, Oahu, but were determined to gather at Zion with other members of the church in Utah and participate in sacred ordinances at the Salt Lake Temple that was under construction there. In the 1870s, the Hawaiian government eased restrictions on emigration, and the Hawaiian “saints,” as the LDS church refers to its members, began their journeys eastward to Utah. In Salt Lake City, assimilation didn’t come easily for the Pacific Islanders, and a committee consisting of three Caucasians and three Hawaiians was sent to find a place suitable for relocation of the Pacific Islanders. After looking at several possible destinations, it was decided that the 1,920-acre John T. Rich Ranch in Skull Valley would be the place. On Aug. 28, 1889, nearly 50 Polynesians arrived in Skull Valley. The settlement was named Iosepa, after Joseph F. Smith, who had been a missionary in Hawaii and later president of the Mormon Church. His uncle, Joseph Smith Jr., had organized the church in 1830. The townsite of Iosepa does not exist today and it’s hard to imagine the place that was once bustling with Hawaiians. Skull Valley is bound by the Cedar Mountains to the west and the juniper-spackled Stansbury Mountains, with its highest peak towering more than Skull Valley was 40 miles from the nearest 11,000 feet, to the east. The super saline Great Salt Lake marks the valley’s northeastern edge. The valley today is dotted with sage train station, and had to be reached by wagon brush. Wisps of yellow, dry grasses poke up from the dusty ground. in 1889. PHOTO: COURTESY OF BYU HAWAII ARCHIVES This past summer, Benjamin Pykles, assistant professor of anthropology at State University of New York at Potsdam, walked in the AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS same places the Polynesians did, dug where they lived and worked, hoping to gain insight into the workings of the Polynesian community that survived for nearly 30 years near the turn of the century. Pykles, who attended Brigham Young University in Utah—where his interest was first sparked about Iosepa—has been researching the abandoned settlement and conducted an archaeological dig at the site for about a month this summer. The townsite was blocked out in typical Mormon fashion with gridded streets and a public square—in this case the 17-acre Imilani Square. Streets and avenues with names like Wailuku, Hawaii, Laie, Honolulu, Waimea, Kula, Kapukini, Napela, Solomona and Kaulianamoku dissected the town. The townsite was roughly 120 acres, with 40 blocks. Lots were three-quarters of an acre. Some individuals owned more than one lot, and some families owned an entire block. The company constructed homes, a school, a store and a church among other buildings. Townspeople worked for the church-controlled Iosepa Agriculture and Stock Co. “In many ways Iosepa was a company town with the Pacific Islanders providing the labor for this agriculture and stock company,” says Pykles. Iosepans dressed up for an annual conference with visiting Mormon church officials, circa 1900-1915. PHOTO: COURTESY OF BYU HAWAII ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS The Morrill and Edmunds-Tucker acts prohibited the church from owning more than $50,000 in property, so the company was structured as a joint stock corporation, with private individuals owning stock in the company. The company grew crops and raised other people’s livestock before acquiring livestock of its own and selling it at market. It grew a variety of crops including oats, barley, wheat, corn, potatoes, hay, squash and pumpkins. It also planted hundreds of fruit, nut and ornamental trees. The town even gained the honor of the best kept and most progressive townsite in Utah. Nearby, Kanaka Lake was stocked with carp. This lake also provided recreation in the form of swimming in the summers and ice skating in the winters. In the beginning, the harsh weather took its toll on the Polynesians. They came almost entirely from the Hawaiian Islands but also from other Pacific Islands, from tropical paradises to this desolate place, and many were sickened. They had to endure bleak winters with snow and freezing temperatures, and hot, dry summers. The graves of some in the cemetery about a half mile away from the townsite are proof of the hardships encountered there. Several inhabitants contracted Hansen’s disease. A small house was constructed a distance away from the townsite. When they needed supplies, a flag was raised on a flagpole and assistance would come. Eventually, the afflicted residents died. Despite the struggles, the people persevered and survived. 1898 portrait of an Iosepan mother and child. Photo: Courtesy of BYU Hawaii Archives and Special “The contrast of coming from Hawaii to here and not having the things we’re spoiled with—central air and heating—they didn’t Collections have that,” said George Sadowski, whose grandfather lived at Iosepa. At first, the water system consisted of water flowing down in open ditches from springs in the foothills to the east in the Stansbury Mountains. In 1908, however, a pressurized water system was installed and piped down to the town. Today, fire hydrants, remnants of that project, protrude through the sage brush. “It seems a little strange they’d be investing so much money to improve the town less than 10 years before it was abandoned,” Pykles said. “This was intended to be a permanent settlement.” By 1915, Iosepa had grown to the height of its population—228 people. That was that same year the LDS Church announced the building of a temple in Hawaii. The Polynesian saints were once again called upon to relocate, this time to assist with the construction of the sacred building. The church offered to pay for the return fares of those who could not afford them. Because of their faith in their religion, they picked up once again, this time leaving their adopted home—which to some was the only home they’d ever known—for their island homeland. By 1917, almost everyone was gone and the settlement was mostly abandoned. “People were quite happy there,” Pykles said. “Others did not like it. Some people just left the settlement and others were crying when they were asked to leave.” The townsite was sold to the Deseret Livestock Co., owned by the church. The land now belongs to the Ensign Group, which operates a working ranch there, grazing cattle. Cory Hoopiiaina is a descendant of one of two families that stayed at Iosepa after it was mostly abandoned. Headstone of John Kauleinamoku, the first Native Hawaiian to settle in Utah permanently. Mormon missionaries first arrived in Hoopiiaina, treasurer of the Iosepa Historical Association—an organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Hawaii in 1850. Converts such as Kauleinamoku and the settlers Iosepa and the sacrifices made there—said his grandfather, Benjamin Kaloni Hoopiiaina, didn’t want to go back to of Iosepa would move to Utah to be closer to church temples, Hawaii when the church encouraged the Hawaiians to return and help with the construction of the temple there. which did not exist in the Islands. Kauleinamoku worked as a carpenter and stone cutter in Salt Lake City from 1874 to 1889 He said the other family ended up leaving Iosepa after just a few weeks, but Benjamin stayed until 1918 before before joining the Iosepa settlement. There, he contracted, and moving into the Salt Lake area. succumbed to, Hansen's disease. PHOTO: COURTESY OF BYU HAWAII ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS “Most didn’t want to leave the land,” Hoopiiaina said. “They were asked to build a temple in Laie. He thought that if you go out there for 28 years and that’s part of you, you don’t want to just up and leave. He had put his sweat and tears into the place and fell in love with it. And it takes a certain kind of person to fall in love with the desert like that.” Structures at Iosepa have long since been razed to the ground, relocated or succumbed to the elements. All that remains is the cemetery to the northeast of the townsite, as well as a few visible foundations and artifacts that jut up from the ground. At the head of the cemetery, the bust of a Polynesian warrior and flags from island nations watch over those who died there. The first death occurred only several weeks after the Polynesians first arrived in Skull Valley. Sage brush now covers the landscape where beautiful trees, manicured lawns, flowers and crops once flourished. Chunks of concrete—remnants of the town’s sidewalks—are strewn about. The giant shade trees that once lined the northern part of the public square are now skeletons of their former selves.

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