Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waikīkī Church

By the time the first company of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) Protestant missionaries arrived in 1820, Kamehameha I had died and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished. On the sabbath (April 23, 1820) Hiram Bingham, the leader of the group, preached the first formal Protestant sermon in the Islands. Initial services were in thatched structures. Later, a more permanent church was built. Kawaiahaʻo Church was designed by its first pastor, Bingham.

There were ten ‘āpana, or branches, of the Kawaiahaʻo Church. One of them was the Waikīkī Church (the others included Kalihi, Palama, Nuʻuanu, Pauoa, Moʻiliʻili, Pālolo, Kaimuki, Puaikalani (Kakaʻako) and Kawaiahaʻo itself. Across Kalākaua Avenue in front of the Moana Hotel, on the present site of the shops and Princess Kaʻiulani Hotel, was the first grammar school in Waikīkī, a small graveyard and the church. In 1916, the property was sold for expansion of the Moana Hotel.

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Objets d’art

Honolulu’s first neon sign flickered to life on February 19, 1929, with the opening of Gump’s Waikiki, an antiques and home furnishing store. The third oldest structure in Waikiki, Gump’s was one of the first retail shops in Waikiki. S & G Gump was founded in San Francisco in 1861 as a mirror and frame shop by Solomon Gump and his brother, Gustav. Gump’s and The City had become intertwined – the store synonymous with San Francisco in its elegance, worldly style and maverick spirit.

Back in the Islands, as tourism began to develop in the 1920s and 30s, people saw commercial possibilities for Waikiki. One of the most endearing was the Honolulu branch of S&G Gump Company of San Francisco. The store opened in 1929, across the street from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Later, the Gump building in Waikīkī was converted into a McDonald’s restaurant (in the 1970s or 1980s;) it was sold in 1991 to a corporate affiliate of high-end retailer Louis Vuitton Malletier of Paris, refurbished and, in 1992, rededicated to retail.

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Invasion of Waikiki

“From the Waikiki Inn to the Seaside Hotel the beach and all available space back of it was occupied by spectators. … There were hundreds of tourists hailing from the four corners of the earth and representatives of almost every race on the globe in the crowd.” “Probably over seven thousand people were at Waikiki to see the spectacle.”

This was Hawaiʻi’s first pageant, part of the 1913 Mid-Winter Carnival, commemorating the conquering of Oʻahu by Hawaiʻi’s first King. “Plunging across sunlit billows and riding swiftly upon the crest of the reef-combed rollers of Waikiki Bay yesterday, a fleet of war canoes brought the conquering army of Kamehameha the Great to Oahu, the first scene in the first historical pageant ever staged in the territory.”

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Public Access on Beaches and Shorelines

State law states that the right of access to Hawaii’s shorelines includes the right of transit along the shorelines. However, there is a specific situation related to ownership of beach areas; it is a special circumstance in Waikiki where in 1928, the Territory of Hawaiʻi entered into a “Waikiki Beach Reclamation” agreement with several of the beachfront property owners.

The Territory built a beach from the existing high water mark; the new beach was “deemed to be natural accretion attached to the abutting property, and title thereto shall immediately vest in the owner or owners of the property abutting thereon”. In addition, eleven groins were built along Waikiki Beach with the intent of capturing sand.

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Waikiki

Originally, the ahupuaʻa of Waikiki (which means “spouting waters”) included all the valleys “from the west side of Makiki valley away to the east side of Wailupe”. It was a Royal Center for 400 years.

Today, Waikiki is the primary visitor destination, and hotel and resort area not just for Oʻahu, but also for all of Hawaiʻi. It is a gathering place for residents and visitors from around the world.