Walter Chamberlain Peacock

Walter Chamberlain (WC) Peacock was born in in 1858 in Lancaster, England.  After a short stay in New Zealand, he arrived in the Islands in about 1881. He operated the Royal Saloon; it’s now home to Murphy’s.

In the 1890s, Walter joined other Honolulu elite who constructed mansions along the Waikīkī shoreline; he built his own a pier (Peacock Pier.)  In 1896, Peacock proposed to build Waikīkī’s first major resort - the Moana Hotel opened on March 11, 1901.  In 1909, Peacock died at the age of 51.

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James Campbell Building

A story in the July 26, 1916 Honolulu Star-bulletin had more impact than a simple subject of road widening, “The Hotel street widening project took on new life when Supervisor Charles N Arnold, chairman of the roads committee, requested that it be referred to his committee.”

“We have a new project, or rather we have dug up an old one, and want to carry it through," he said. "We intend to straighten Hotel street, not only on the Ewa side of Fort street, but also on the Waikiki side.”

“A piece about eight feet deep of the property occupied by the Mott-Smith building will be condemned as well as the 12 foot piece of the Campbell building.  The cost will be distributed among the benefited property owners up and down Hotel street and along Fort street.”  (Honolulu Star-bulletin, July 26, 1916.)

In 1917, buildings housing Hollister & Company, wholesale and retail druggist, tobacconist, and photographic retailer and Benson, Smith & Company, seller of drugs, medicines, and chemicals were demolished to make way for the new James Campbell Building on the makai-ewa corner of Fort and Hotel Streets.  (honolulu-gov)

Then on September 28, 1917, the Honolulu Star-bulletin reported, “On the corner of Hotel and Fort streets, the new Campbell Estate building will soon be under construction.  The workmen are still excavating, and some of the foundation work has been started, but it will be several months before definite results begin to show.”

“The walls of the Hollister Drug company’s buildings are down and the scaffolding that the workmen have erected is practically all that remains of the front of the old building.   When complete: the new Hollister building will be three stories high, with a grey-white exterior, similar in appearance to the new Ehlers' building.”

It’s not clear if World War I delayed construction, but the building helped with the war effort.  The Hawaiian Gazette on May 14, 1918 noted the Campbell building served as the War Savings and Thrift Stamp committee’s demonstration for its “dig it up in our dug out” campaign.

“The new headquarters are a replica of a dug out on the western front, copied from a photograph of General Leonard Wood's conference with Genera) Mandolon of the French army on one of General Wood's visits to the front.”

“The dug out occupies the corner of the unfinished Campbell Building. It is revetted with sand bags and camouflaged with green boughs but the committee hopes that, in spike of the camouflage, the people of Honolulu will find its range, and the heavier the bombardment, the better.”

“The dug out is the work of Jay Elmont, whose window displays in behalf of the Red Cross at Ehlers, Lewers and Cooke, and the Red Cross Drive headquarters have drawn much attention during the last week.”  It was set up to encourage savings and buying War Savings Stamps and Baby Bonds.  (Hawaiian Gazette, May 14, 1918)

By the next year, merchants in the new Campbell Building were advertising for customers to visit them in the new building.

This building is not to be confused with the “Campbell Block” (which was also on Fort Street, but closer to the Harbor between Queen and Merchant Streets.)

The lower town Campbell Block building started out as Mr. William French’s (the “merchant prince”) Honolulu premises extending from Kaʻahumanu to Fort Street.  It was surrounded by a high picket fence with some hau trees standing just within the line of the fence.

The building was quite a sizable one of wood, with a high basement and large trading rooms above. Mr. French was one of the oldest residents and a person of considerable influence.  (Maly)

The property was sold to James Austin, who sold it in 1882 to James Campbell, who owned the adjacent land on the Diamond Head side (fronting Fort Street.)  He built the “Campbell Block,” a large building that included uses such as storage, shops and offices.

Merchant Street was once the main street of the financial and governmental functions in the city, and was Honolulu's earliest commercial center.  Dating from 1854, the remaining historic buildings along this road help tell the story of the growth and development of Honolulu's professional and business community.

A great deal of the economic and political history of Hawaiʻi was created and written by the previous occupants of these buildings. Ranging from banks to bars and post office to newspapers, they have paid silent witness to the creation of present day Hawaiʻi.  (NPS)

Today, we still see these remnants of the past in lower downtown:  Melchers (1854,) the oldest commercial building in Honolulu; Kamehameha V Post Office (1871;) Bishop Bank (1878,) now known as the Harriet Bouslog Building; The Friend Building (1887 and 1900,) the site of the Oʻahu Bethel Church established in 1837; Royal Saloon (1890,) now Murphy’s; TR Foster Building (1891,) forerunner to Hawaiian Airlines;  Bishop Estate Building (1896;) Stangenwald Building (1901,) the tallest structure in Hawaiʻi until 1950; Judd Building (1898;) Yokohama Specie Bank (1909) and Honolulu Police Station (1931,) one of the earliest police forces in the world, dating to 1834.

The Campbell Block survived a fire, but on October 11, 1964, the Sunday Star-Bulletin and Advertiser noted, “Office-Parking Building Planned by Campbell Estate on Fort Street.”

Plans called for a combined office and parking structure to replace the 2-story Campbell Block on Fort and Merchants Streets; this new building was considered an important part of the redevelopment of downtown Honolulu.  (Adamson)   The new building was completed in May 1967.

Back to upper downtown and the “Campbell Building.”  Today, the Campbell building (the same building is still there, however with a slightly different look) is home to Fisher Hawaiʻi (for its downtown facility.)

The image shows the James Campbell Building  I added a couple of other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Merchant Street Historic District, Honolulu

Once the main street of the financial and governmental functions in the city, Merchant Street was Honolulu's earliest commercial center.  Dating from 1854, these buildings help tell the story of the growth and development of Honolulu's professional and business community.

The variety of architectural styles depict the changing attitudes and living patterns during the emergence of Honolulu as a major city.

Melchers (1854)
The oldest commercial building in Honolulu, erected in 1854, is Melchers Building at 51 Merchant Street, built for the retail firm of Melchers and Reiner. Its original coral stone walls are no longer visible under its layers of stucco and paint, and it now houses city government offices, not private businesses.

Kamehameha V Post Office (1871)
The Kingdom of Hawai‘i instituted a postal system in 1851, issuing 5 and 13 cent stamps for letters and a 2 cent stamp for papers. Operated as a private concession for many years, the postal service expanded its work in the 1860s. David Kalākaua, later Hawaii’s monarch, ran the service from 1862 to 1865. The Kamehameha V Post Office at the corner of Merchant and Bethel Streets was the first building in Hawaiʻi to be constructed entirely of precast concrete blocks reinforced with iron bars. It was built by JG Osborne in 1871 and the success of this new method was replicated on a much grander scale the next year in the royal palace, Aliʻiōlani Hale. In 1900, the old Post Office became a unit of the U.S. Postal System.

Bishop Bank (1878)
Charles Reed Bishop moved to Honolulu in 1846; married Bernice Pauahi, in 1850; and Bishop started the first bank in Hawaiʻi, the Bishop & Co. Bank in 1858, The Bishop Bank Building at 63 Merchant Street was the earliest of the Italianate (or Renaissance Revival) structures on the street, built in 1878 and designed by Thomas J. Baker (one of the architects of ʻIolani Palace.)  In 1925, Bishop Bank moved to much larger quarters along "Bankers Row" on Bishop Street, and later changed its name to First Hawaiian Bank, now the largest in the state. The building, now known as the Harriet Bouslog Building, houses the offices of the Harriet Bouslog Labor Scholarship Fund and the Bouslog/Sawyer Trusts.

The Friend Building (1887 and 1900)
This site was the approximate location of the Oʻahu Bethel Church established in 1837. Reverend Samuel C. Damon (1815-1885) founded the English-language paper 'The Friend' in 1843 and ran the paper from this earlier site of the Seamen’s Bethel Church until his death in 1885. The Chinatown fire of 1886 destroyed the original Seaman’s Bethel building. In 1887, builder George Lucas, erected a single, two-story brick building on the makai (ocean) side of this double parcel to house The Friend and other papers, both English language and Hawaiian, printed by the Press Publishing Company.

Royal Saloon (1890)
In 1862, the Hawaiian Government officially permitted the sale of “ardent spirits” after many years of typically unheeded suppression. An establishment selling alcohol to the many visiting sailors was located on this approximate site as early as 1873. The bar was only one of scores of similar establishments in Honolulu’s harbor area during the nineteenth century.  In 1890, local barkeeper and investor Walter C. Peacock built and probably designed the Royal Saloon, one year after the widening of Merchant Street.

TR Foster Building (1891)
Thomas R. Foster began his company, Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, in 1878.  The TR Foster Building at 902 Nuʻuanu Avenue was built as his headquarters in 1891. In 1880, Foster had purchased the estate of the renowned botanist William Hillebrand (1821–1886), which was bequeathed to the city as Foster Botanical Garden at the death of his wife, Mary E. Foster, in 1930.  (When airplanes came to the Hawaiian Islands, the Inter-Island Navigation Company founded a subsidiary, Inter-Island Airways. In 1941, Inter-Island changed its name to Hawaiian Airlines and discontinued its steam boat service in 1947.)

Bishop Estate Building (1896)
In 1896, the Bishop Estate purchased the property and built the current building. Bishop Estate offices remained at this location until 1918, when the trust built another building close by on Kaʻahumanu Avenue.  The Bishop Estate Building at 71 Merchant Street was designed by architects Clinton Briggs Ripley and his junior partner, CW Dickey.  It initially housed the executive offices of not only the Bishop Estate, but also the Charles Reed Bishop Trust and the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. Constructed of dark lava from the Estate's own quarries, its notable features include arches above the lower door and window frames, four rough stone pilasters on the upper level, and a corniced parapet along the roofline.  (The original Kamehameha School for Boys opened in 1887 on a site currently occupied by Bishop Museum. The girls' school opened in 1894 nearby. By 1955, both schools moved to Kapālama Heights.)

Stangenwald Building (1901)
At six stories, the Stangenwald building was considered Hawaii's first skyscraper and one of the most prestigious addresses in Honolulu.  Designed by noted architect Charles William Dickey, construction of the steel-frame and brick building began in 1900 and the building was completed in 1901.  This building is of the most modern style of fire-proof architecture, designed with completeness of office conveniences equal to that of any city."  Honolulu's business community seemed to agree, for its prestigious address was claimed by several of Honolulu's most prominent company names: The Henry Waterhouse Trust Company, B F Dillingham, Castle and Cooke, Alexander & Baldwin and C Brewer Companies.  The Stangenwald remained the tallest structure until 1950, when the seven-story Edgewater Hotel in Waikīkī took over that title.

Judd Building (1898)
Dr. Gerrit P. Judd (1803-1873), a Protestant missionary who arrived in Hawai‘i in 1826, purchased the lot at the corner of Merchant and Fort Streets in 1861.  The Judd Building, designed by Oliver G. Traphagen, boasted Hawaii's first passenger elevator when it opened in 1898. The building was the first home for the newly formed Bank of Hawaii, which remained on the ground floor until 1927, when the bank took over new premises on Bishop Street.  A fifth floor was added on top in the 1920s.  The name commemorates Dr. Gerrit P. Judd, who became a close advisor to Kamehameha III and served as a minister in government of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i. He was a central figure in the creation of Hawai‘i’s constitution and helped to negotiate the return of Hawaiian sovereignty from Great Britain in 1843.

Yokohama Specie Bank (1909)
Overseas branches of the Yokohama Specie Bank (est. 1880) were chartered to act as agents of Imperial Japan. The Honolulu branch was the first successful Japanese bank in Hawaiʻi. The building at 36 Merchant Street dates from 1909 and was designed by one of Honolulu's most prolific architects, Henry Livingston Kerr, who considered it not just his own finest work, but the finest in the city at the time. The brick and steel structure is L-shaped, with a corner entrance and a courtyard in back. The bank purchased this property, previously occupied by the 1855 Sailor’s Home, in 1907. During its operation, the bank set aside separate reception areas for Japanese-speaking, Chinese-speaking and English-speaking customers.

Honolulu Police Station (1931)
With one of the earliest police forces in the world, dating to 1834 and the reign of Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli), the Kingdom of Hawaii had an earlier police station on King Street.  The old Honolulu Police Station at 842 Bethel Street occupies the whole block of Merchant Street between Bethel Street and Nuʻuanu Avenue. Built in 1931, it replaced an earlier brick building on the same site that dated from 1885 (the new structure is also known as the Walter Murray Gibson Building.)  At that time, the government also created a new Bethel Street extension, which linked Merchant Street to Queen Street.  Architect Louis Davis designed it in a Spanish Mission Revival style that matches very well that of the newly built city hall, Honolulu Hale (1929.) It served as the headquarters of the Honolulu Police Department until the latter moved to the old Sears building in Pawaʻa in 1967. It was renovated in the 1980s and now houses other city offices.

The image shows Merchant Street in 1885 looking toward Waikiki; Kamehameha V Post Office in left foreground, right rear Bishop Bank. I have added more images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook page.

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