View from the Nuuanu Pali Lookout, Oahu, Hawaii, Mid 1940
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Description:
Panoramic photograph looking out from the Nuuanu Pali Lookout across the Windward Oahu coastal valley below. Cultivated fields, pasture, and patches of forest checker the valley floor, with a road winding through the landscape and small structures visible in the middle distance; rolling hills rise along the horizon beneath a hazy sky. The photograph is mounted with paper corners on its original album page, with tape residue, foxing, and staining visible along the borders. Mid 1940.
Additional Notes
This photograph is from the personal collection of photographs taken by CPL William Stinson Brown while stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii before the infamous attack of 7 December 1941. CPL Brown was there during the attack. These unique photographs were donated to the COGG Honor Archive for public use of students, writers and researchers of history. The generous donation was from CPL William S. Brown’s son, William Stinson “Bill” Brown Jr., and his granddaughter, Caitlin Brown Clancy.
View taken from the Nuuanu Pali Lookout, Oahu, looking out over the Windward valley below — the same overlook Brown and his fellow Marines visited by car, documented in a companion photograph in this collection (“Automobiles on the Road to the Nuuanu Pali, Oahu, Hawaii, Mid 1940”). Mid 1940.
Historical note: Long before World War II, the Pali was already a storied site in Hawaiian history. In 1795, it was the location of the Battle of Nuʻuanu, in which King Kamehameha I’s forces defeated the Oʻahu warriors defending against his campaign to unify the Hawaiian Islands, driving many of the defenders back through Nuʻuanu Valley and over the cliff edge at the Pali to secure his rule over Oʻahu. Sources: 100 Hawaii (Facebook), “The Ghostly Tale of Pali Lookout”; Hawaii.com, “Nuʻuanu Pali Lookout.”
Image lightened and contrast-enhanced for legibility; original unedited scan retained on file.