HF: The SS Alaska was a 4,012 ton, 8 speed, side-wheel steamship launched on 27th November 27th 1867 for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. She saw service between New York and Aspinwall, now known as Colón, Panama, and was later used on the San Francisco to Panama City and San Francisco to Hong Kong routes until 1879. During the night of Tuesday 22 September […]
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Ian Wolfe has Flikr pages incorporating material relating to the precise site of the Orient Tobacco Manufactory Company. Ian has kindly given permission to show this on our website. This aerial photo is probably pre-WW2, (Source 1). Ian has overlaid these Kowloon roads: Yellow lines – Nathan Road, Orange lines – Waterloo Road, Green line – Soy Street, Pink line – […]
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Edward Schneider (great-grandson of Carl Ingenohl): El Oriente was mostly a trade name, although it did appear in various names of companies of the group associated with Carl Ingenohl’s business group. The parent company was a Swiss partnership of which Ingenohl was the General Partner (and principal partner) and that partnership owned the Hong Kong company, the Manila company (until […]
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Tymon Mellor, a frequent contributor to our website, has just set up his own, Hong Kong Historic Maps, which will be of immense use to those interested in most aspects of Hong Kong’s history. The site has an initial 30 maps dating from 1810 to 1995 and is dedicated to the discovery and display of historic maps of Hong Kong. Over the […]
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This article is the result of several people’s research into The Orient Tobacco Manufactory Company which operated in Hong Kong during the early part of the 20th century and at least up until WW2. It is the joint effort of several contributors some of whom provided comments to our original article Orient Tobacco Manufactury – many questions, any answers? – initial research, linked […]
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This article is the result of several people’s research into the life of Carl Ingenohl and in particular the Hong Kong company, Orient Tobacco Manufactory, which he owned. This company operated during the early part of the 20th century and at least until WW2. The information we have about Ingenohl’s and Orient Tobacco is sometimes confusing or contradictory. Correction, clarification […]
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HF: Q+A 33 asks for further information about a proposed suspension bridge from HK Island to Lei Yue Mun which had been mentioned in a letter by R Coates in the SCMP of 30th January 2016. I doubted that such a bridge would have been feasible given that it would have been directly in front of, and at right angle to, […]
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Nahaha Lau: In 1939, a Shanghai entrepreneur Mr. Li Ying Sheng came to Hong Kong and established South China Brickworks in Castle Peak (Tuen Mun). It was later renamed Keen Sing Brickworks. Keen Sing Brickworks was located near the hill Por Lo Shan, which provided plenty of “red mud” as material for producing fired bricks. As the business evolved, the […]
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This article is the result of several people’s research into industrial development, manufacturing, and other related topics in Tuen Mun district. If you can provide information on any of the subjects below, or add to the list, it would be good to hear from you. I can then gradually add to this framework to provide a fuller picture with an […]
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HF: There is valuable background information on the origin of name Hong Kong and a connections to the export of incense in the book, Hong Kong and Its External Communications: The History of Hong Kong prior to British Arrival, linked below. This was written by Lo Hsiang Lin et al, in 1963. The image shown on the Home page of […]
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