Location
Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i
Client
Cultural Surveys Hawai`i
Fort Kamehameha’s rich history will come alive with the implementation of HHF’s trail plan. Users will walk down the very sidewalks used by Army personnel and families as early as 1913 and learn about the nationwide system of coastal defense fortifications and the day-to-day life of their residents.
Through site visits to the Fort Kamehameha Historic District and the review of historical and contemporary documentation—including HHF’s Fort Kamehameha Cultural Landscape Report—HHF developed eight interpretive themes to capture Fort Kamehameha’s history; a trail route with interpretive stops to provide visual access to the cultural landscape, including gun batteries, officers’ houses, a chapel, and bandstand; and design guidelines with which to implement the trail.
HHF’s plan integrates the Fort Kamehameha Interpretive Trail with two adjacent interpretive venues—the Hickam Historical Signage Tour and the Hickam Wetland Trail—by connecting the three trail routes and using complementary signage design and content.
HHF’s interpretive trail design is inspired by the National Park Service’s “father” of interpretation, who said that interpretation should “relate what is being displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the viewer. . . .”