Transportation

The US Army Corps of Engineers built the first Army railroad on Oahu in 1907 to use for construction of Fort Kamehameha. Seven batteries were built between 1907 and 1920, and the "temporary" railroad not only remained but was expanded to become a permanent one in 1920 with the establishment of the 41st Coast Artillery (Railway). The Oahu Railway & Land Company (OR&L) provided most rail service to the Army, beginning with Fort Shafter in 1905 and Schofield Barracks in 1909. Government tracks were built at Schofield Barracks by the Army between 1922 and 1933, including an independent 60-centimeter "trench" railroad system. Two highly specialized railroads were built at Forts Weaver and Barrette to serve the 16-inch gun batteries. With the advent of World War II, the Army, short on equipment, continued to depend heavily on the OR&L. The OR&L abandoned its main line in December 1947, and the Army's railroads were also soon removed.

US Navy rail operations on Oahu began in 1908 with construction railroads used to help build the shipyard. Expansion of Pearl Harbor to include the submarine base and the naval magazine on Kuahua Island required a permanent railroad, which was begun in 1911. This construction provided industrial employment to hundreds of local men in the existing agricultural economy, and the influx of additional manpower from the mainland contributed to an increasingly skilled and diverse population. World War II brought about a dramatic increase in Navy railroad operations in support of the war effort. Success in the Pacific theater of operations depended on the Navy's railroads, equipment, and the Oahu Railway & Land Company (OR&L), which connected all the bases. The OR&L abandoned its main line in December 1947. By the mid-1950s, railroad operations at Pearl Harbor also ceased. Rail operations continued at and between Naval Magazine Lualualei and Ammunition Depot West Loch through the Korean Conflict and Vietnam era, ending in 1972.

In 1886, five men met at San Francisco's luxurious Baldwin Hotel to discuss a most profitable business: opium smuggling. The exploits of Will Whaley and his partners became the stuff of legend, with tales of landing contraband on deserted shores by the light of the moon, voyages across the Pacific, typhoons and shipwrecks. Their co-conspirator was the notorious Halcyon, a schooner that novelist Jack London once admiringly wrote "sailed like a witch." Despite the danger, betrayals and mysterious deaths, their success inspired copycats and competitors alike, eager to cash in on the lucrative drug trade. Join author and career law enforcement agent John Madinger as he recounts the incredible story of America's first organized drug trafficking ring.

Rising from the ashes of the Pearl Harbor attack, Barbers Point Naval Air Station would become a major staging point for US Navy aircraft for the war in the Pacific, culminating with the surrender of the Empire of Japan. With the end of World War II in the Pacific and throughout the Cold War, Barbers Point would be home base for the US Navy's fleet of maritime patrol aircraft that hunted the growing threat of Soviet submarines prowling the vast Pacific. From 1942 until its closing in 1999, Barbers Point was the US Navy's only naval air station in the Pacific.