The Hawaiian City of Joseph in Utah

DESOLATION
Looking at Skull Valley, I see some harsh ground for Utah. It's just southeast of the Bonneville Salt Flats and next to the top secret Dugway Proving Grounds -- a part of Utah that is sparsely populated to say the least. The little water in the area seems to be frozen in the mountains or under ground. Wikipedia describes the valley this way, “Considered an unsuccessful attempt at colonization, Iosepa was an extremely inhospitable location for any group of people.”

But the Hawaiians wanted to be next to the Salt Lake Temple, so I guess Skull Valley, 75 miles out, was reasonably close. I suspect there were other reasons. After all, at the time there was a temple in St. George, a much warmer area but which already had a colony. There was another in Logan and one in Manti, Utah.

I suspect that it wasn’t being close to just any temple but rather the Hawaiian saints wanted to be by Elder Smith, Elder Cannon and other senior authorities at the Church office in SLC.

A BAD NAME TOO
The colony was named after the Apostle Joseph F. Smith, who served his mission in the Hawaiian islands. They supposedly gave it the Hawaiian name for Joseph -- Iosepa.

Iosepa?? What’s that? The Hawaiian language doesn't have an "s" in its alphabet. "Iokepa" would be the appropriate transliteration of Joseph's name into a Hawaiian pronunciation. "IoSepa" sounds like a bunch of haoles (white guys) slurring the name back to English, sort of a second generation transliteration. e.g. Joseph > Iokepa > Iosepa > And even this distortion is further distorted by being given an Anglo pronunciation, Yo-seh-pa. Matthew Kester of BYU-Hawaii states that Hawaiians were more literate than their Caucasian counterparts at the time. They certainly knew how to read and write their language. Their church leaders also preached in Hawaiian. In other words, the Hawaiians of "Iosepa" knew how to write their language in 1889 just like we know that Lisa is not spelled "3-I-S-A." It's a real indication that the feedback mechanisms to civic leadership were not fully working.

The fact that the Hawaiian saints let the spelling stand meant that they understood the ignorance of the surrounding culture and their civic leaders but went along out of respect for authority. I can't come up with another conclusion than that. For the record, Iokepah is pronounced EE-OO-KE-PAH. The wrong name and pronounciation is but another tangible evidence of Utah haoles trying to make sense and to nurture what they didn't understand. The results of everyone’s efforts are the graves on the ghost town of Iosepa in the desolate Skull Valley.

HAWAIIANS FAILED BECAUSE NOT INDUSTRIOUS?

There are some here that think their brown brothers failed because they simply could not work as hard as the other colonists throughout Utah. One web site author writes,

“The Kanakas were not used to the hard labor necessary to create a colony which was to survive on its own. Although they managed to get by most of time, much of their food was imported from Salt Lake City.”

Historian Arrington seems to anticipate this stereotype and responds:

“Even more serious from the standpoint of the production record of the colony, however, were the frequent outbreaks of milder forms of illness among the natives. Accustomed to island conditions, the constitutions of the Hawaiians, despite a fierce faith, did not adjust readily to the rigors of the burning heat of the summer sun and the driving winds and zero temperatures of the Skull Valley winters. The high rate of mortality is indicated by the large number of markers in the village cemetery…It is probable that the disastrous depression of the 1890's, with its long period of declining farm prices, was responsible for most of the financial problems of the colony and the need for Church help. Other Church colonies required similar assistance. Certainly, the Hawaiian Saints did not lack the qualities of industry and frugality.” (Improvement Era, 1954, May, 1954)

People tend to work pretty hard when the natural alternative is death. President Smith saw this first hand. He particularly saw how his beloved Hawaiian saints were faithful in tribulation, even to death. It may have been seeing that level of tribulation first hand at the Hawaiian colony that had now President Smith receptive to build the first temple outside of Utah -- in Laie, Oahu.

Iosepa lasted as a community until 1917 at which time the residents returned to Hawaii where an LDS Temple was under construction. The LDS Church paid the travel expenses for those who could not afford to pay themselves.

Utah's plumeria tree died that year, despite all the efforts of all its gardners. As for me, to this day I never understood why my beloved plumeria in my yard did not make it.

The Ghost Town can be seen on southbound 196 off of I-80.
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Other resources:

Check the audio recording from the Savvy Traveler's experiences at this ghost town in May.

Iosepa, the place, inspires new BYU-Hawaii archivist. BYU-Hawaii