Bishop Museum

American businessman and politician Charles Reed Bishop founded Bishop Museum in 1889 to honor his late wife, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a member of Hawaiʻi’s royal family. It is the largest historical and cultural museum in Hawaiʻi. The museum is renowned for its collections and for conducting archaeological and scientific research in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific area.

Bishop Museum’s Applied Research Group conducted numerous archaeological surveys of the proposed routes of H-3 under contract to the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation (HDOT), beginning with studies done in Moanalua and Hālawa valleys in 1970. The contracts were worth millions of dollars. Some of the museum’s reports were reproduced in the environmental impact statements for the H-3 project.

Over the course of H-3’s construction, Bishop Museum’s interpretations and assessments of the significance of various archaeological sites changed. The museum’s archaeological work was later criticized for being inadequate. In particular, other experts disputed the museum’s conclusions about the location of Kukuiokāne Heiau and whether or not it was in the path of the freeway. Museum archaeologist Scott Williams identified the site of Kukuiokāne Heiau in 1990 and stated that part of it had already been damaged. Museum anthropologist Barry Nakamura was fired in 1992 after he accused the museum of doing poor archaeological work and covering up the existence of a women’s heiau.

Despite these criticisms, HDOT continued to use the museum for archaeological surveys throughout the project. HDOT also contracted with Bishop Museum to complete inventories of archaeological sites following the completion of H-3 to produce final reports, which were issued as early as 1987 and as late as 2013.