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Kalawao County, Hawaii

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

1historic places

—earliest paper

1903formed

82pop. 2020

2cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 1 listed property in the county, first listed in 1976; 1 is also National Historic Landmark. Most listings are in or near Kalaupapa.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Hawaii is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Kalawao titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

0 of 1 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

1 listed property

Property	City	Type	Listed
Kalaupapa National Historical Park NHL	Kalaupapa	District	1976

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Kalawao was formed in 1903 (1903-04-22) from that portion of the island of Molokai known as Kalaupapa, Kalawao, Waikolu.

KALAWAO created by the Territory of Hawaii from that portion of the island of Molokai known as Kalaupapa, Kalawao, and Waikolu; commonly designated as the Leper Settlement. KALAWAO was under the direct jurisdiction and control of the Board of Health.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Kalawao County population from 1900 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
1,177	667	446	340	279	144	147	82

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

Site	Type	Dist.
Kalaupapa National Historical Park	Park unit	2.6 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

2 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 2 of 2 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Kalawao Cemetery	21.17703	-156.94808
Siloama Congregational Church Cemetery	21.17796	-156.94874

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Kalawao County, Hawaii

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.