Salt Lake

Salt Lake is a suburban neighborhood of Honolulu, Hawai?i on the island of O?ahu. The area is also known as Āliamanu after a nearby crater, although Salt Lake itself is in a crater called Ālia pa?akai ? meaning "salt pond" in Hawaiian. The Salt Lake community was developed in the 1960s during the Hawai?i construction boom, providing residents with an expansive view of downtown Honolulu and the sugarcane plantations of the central plain of O?ahu. It is a community of high-rise condominiums, mid-rise town-dwellings, and houses snaking around the remnants of a now freshwater lake.

The Salt Lake community is built in the larger and easternmost of three overlapping, low profile, tuff cones or volcanic craters: Makalapa, Āliamanu and Āliapa?akai. A lake, at one time 1.5 km across (20 ha) but very shallow, formed in the bowl of Āliapa?akai fed by freshwater springs or possibly seawater seepages (Alexander, 1926 in Maciolek, 1982). Because the lake had no outlet, water loss was largely by evaporation, concentrating salts. Up until 1910, the lake was regularly so salty that salt deposits formed around the shore. In that year, an artesian well was dug to bring the water level higher (and salt content lower) for use as a mullet pond; a tunnel, dug through the southeast rim of the crater, controlled water level and provided an outlet (Macdonald, Abbott, and Peterson. 1983). This act and later construction of a larger drainage outlet, eventually removed the salt from Salt Lake.

An ahupua?a in ancient Hawai?i was a parcel of royal land that stretched from the mountain to the sea. The ahupua'a of Moanalua eventually became the property of the Estate of S.M. Damon, a private trust of lands owned by Samuel M. Damon. Before him, these lands belonged to the House of Kamehameha. Damon was involved with the Committee of Safety that succeeded in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai?i and obtained the abdication of Queen Lili?uokalani. Damon later became one of the first trustees of the Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate and served alongside philanthropist Charles Reed Bishop. The Estate of S.M. Damon sold a part of the original ahupua'a to commercial and residential developers in 1956. After statehood, the developers took part in an effort led by then Governor of Hawai?i John A. Burns to establish Honolulu as one of the most modern of the cities in the United States with Salt Lake as one of its highlights.