$4.6 million OK’d
for park expansion

The funds will acquire 238
additional acres for a historical park

HONAUNAU, Hawaii » Congress has approved $4.6 million for a 238-acre expansion of Puuhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park in South Kona, the Trust for Public Land announced.

The expansion means the existing 182-acre park, once known as City of Refuge, will include adjoining lands of the former fishing village of Kiilae, inhabited until the 1930s.

Besides numerous archaeological sites, the land has historical ties to John Young, advisor to Kamehameha I, and to Kekela-O-Ka-Lani, mother of Queen Emma.

A bill to authorize the expanding of the Puuhonua park was one of the last efforts of U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink before her death in 2002.

The authorization was approved, and the Trust for Public Land bought the 238 acres as part of its program of holding private land until it can be acquired by the federal government.

Federal purchase funds were included in the omnibus appropriation bill passed by Congress this week.

If the land had not been added to the Puuhonua park, a private company planned 5-acre house lots on the site.

Created as a county park in the 1920s and established as a federal park in 1961, Puuhonua preserves a religious site used by ancient Hawaiians as a refuge from war and a place where wrongdoers could be cleared of guilt.

Although never a city in modern terms, the site was given that name by early missionaries who compared it to "cities of refuge" named in the Bible.