Through the turbulent 1920s, 30s and 40s, Samuel Alexander Baldwin (1885-1950), saw the beginning and end of two World Wars, Prohibition and the Great Depression. He was the manager of Haleakala Ranch for most of his life and president for the last three years. He moved to Maui from Honolulu, and in 1918 built a home at Kapalaea with his wife Kathrine, where they raised five children.

Sam detailed much of his beloved ranch life around Haleakala in a diary. One of our favorite pages from his diary tells the story of a monumental horseback ride in December of 1917 on a trip to the crater to get cattle at Paliku:

Left Ranch at 2:15 am
Arr. Halemau 5:20
Arr. Paliku 8:20
Left Paliku with cattle 9:30
Arr. bottom of Sliding Sands 12:30 pm
Arr. top of Sliding Sands 2:37
Arr. Puuniauniau 4:50
Arr. Home at the Ranch 6:40 that night.

This ride covered over 25 miles, going up and down more than 20,000 vertical feet. It was also in 1917 that an outbreak of Anthrax occurred in cattle at the ranch. Sam was instrumental in setting up a quarantine with guards, building pens and fences, inoculating cattle and sheep, and succeeded in getting the epidemic under control in a couple of months.

In his spare hours, Sam Baldwin spent a lot of time with renowned artist Howard Hitchcock, traveling around the ranch and into the crater, where Hitchcock did a lot of his famous work. There is also many a story about driving cattle down the mountain pastures with guests, who included some of Hawaii’s big family names like Rice, Castle, Cooke, Dillingham, Walker and von Tempsky, often staying at the “Ukulele Hotel” (a camp house up at the 4000-foot elevation on Haleakala). Polo playing was a significant part of Sam’s life, and he won many matches with his brothers Harry, Edward and Frank around the islands. He was also very involved in getting the horse races established at Maui County Fair. From the 1920s-30s Sam and his wife Kathrine traveled a lot, by ship and by train, across country and into Asia and New Zealand. Their children were attending prep schools and college back East at this time.