Ford Island is an islet in the center of Pearl Harbor, Oahu, in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It was the site of an ancient Hawaiian fertility ritual, which was stopped by Christian missionaries during the 1830s. The island was given by Kamehameha I to Spanish deserter Francisco de Paula Marín, and later returned to the monarchy. It is 1.5 miles long and 0.75 miles wide, and was enlarged from 334 to 441 acres between 1930 and 1940.
About Ford Island in brief
Ford Island is an islet in the center of Pearl Harbor, Oahu, in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It was the site of an ancient Hawaiian fertility ritual, which was stopped by Christian missionaries during the 1830s. The island was given by Kamehameha I to Spanish deserter Francisco de Paula Marín, and later returned to the monarchy. It is 1.5 miles long and 0. 75 miles wide, and was enlarged from 334 to 441 acres between 1930 and 1940 with land fill dredged from the surrounding harbor. In 1991, the Navy discovered nine metals, two semi-volatile organic compounds and a polychlorinated biphenyl in Ford Island’s soil, groundwater and marine sediment. Ford Island continues to serve an active role in the Pacific, hosting military functions at the Pacific Warfighting Center and civilian functions at NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. As of 2011 the National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed the island as one of the United States’ most-endangered historic sites. Nearly all the plant life on the island is non-native, including edible cacti, mulletfish, and mullet house sparrows. It has been featured in films such as Tora! Tora!’s and Pearl Harbor and receives tourists at the USS Arizona memorial and the USS Missouri museum. In 1996, a 4-acre landfill on the southwestern shore and ordnance bunkers on the northeastern side of the island were found to be contaminated.
The Navy considered removing the contaminated soil and installed six wells to monitor groundwater, but decided to follow the original recommendation in 1995 and capped the contaminated area with topsoil. The Ford Island is likely very very very sparse and dominated by invasive species such as mouse, mongoose, brown rat, black rat, sparrow and common mynah sparrow. An endangered owl endemic, the Java pueo, has been seen hunting on the islet. There are two smaller islets near the island: Mokunui and Mokuiki. The land is a relatively flat plain rising from 5 to 15 feet above mean water level, and slopes toward Pearl Harbor. It connects to the larger island of Oʻahu, surrounding Pearl Harbor,. via a 4,672 ft bridge at its northern tip which crosses east to Halawa Landing. It’s 1. 5 miles long, 0.75 miles wide and 1.25 miles deep. The islet was named Rabbit Island, Marín’s Island, and Little Goats Island in 1825, and its native Hawaiian name is Mokuʻume’ume. The U. S. Navy took over the island in 1939 as a station for battleship and submarine maintenance. In 1916, part of Ford Island was sold to the. Army for use by an aviation division in Hawaii, and by 1939 it was taken over by the Navy as a. battleship maintenance station. In the 1910s to the 1940s, the island continued to grow as a strategic center of operations for the Navy in thePacific Ocean.
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This page is based on the article Ford Island published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
