Although lighthouse construction and maintenance were the responsibility of the Treasury Department, the Corps of Engineers had played a large role in the program since the 1850s. While planning coastal fortifications, establishing harbor lines, and dredging were important activities in the new American territory, it was the need for better lighthouses that brought a permanent engineer presence to the islands. During World War II, the district reoccupied the structure. It was becoming difficult to supervise problem-ridden projects from the distant division office.Īlexander Young Building, Honolulu, where Slattery opened theĭistrict office. When the original contractor from California lost its dredge in a storm, it turned the contract over to a local company. Because there were no engineer officers in Hawaii in 1901 when the Northern Pacific Division in San Francisco awarded a dredging contract, the division engineer sent a civilian to supervise the work. The River and Harbor Act of 1899 appropriated money to dredge the entrance channel to Pearl Harbor. The new lines were controversial, however, so the chief of engineers asked for a new board that had to be composed of artillery officers because Major Langfitt had left the islands. The chief gave the task to Major Langfitt, who held public hearings and made recommendations. Harbor lines regulate where piers and other structures can be built. While the Corps of Engineers was planning the seacoast defenses of Oahu, it also received a request from local authorities in Hawaii to establish harbor lines in Honolulu harbor. The board also recommended that Pearl Harbor be given first priority for the construction of seacoast fortifications, but included some defenses for Honolulu Harbor. In 1901 the chief of engineers, with the War Department’s approval, established a board of engineer and artillery officers to study Oahu’s defense requirements. Before he left the islands in 1899, Major Langfitt drew up a defense plan for Pearl Harbor and presented it to the chief of engineers. Volunteer Engineers, which landed on the islands and established itself at Camp McKinley near Honolulu. Langfitt led a force of American soldiers, including the Third Battalion of U.S. The Honolulu District celebrated its one-hundredth birthday on April 15, 2005, but the engineer presence in the Hawaiian Islands actually began at least seven years earlier in 1898.
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