While the Moana is touted as the First lady of Waikīkī, the Hale‘iwa Hotel, at the end of the OR&L train line in North Shore O‘ahu was constructed a year before the Moana.
In 1898, as part of the O‘ahu Railway & Land Company (OR&L)
rail system, the Hale‘iwa Hotel ("house of the ‘iwa", or frigate
bird) was completed.
The hotel was part of a bigger plan to expand and diversify operations
of the OR&L rail line. OR&L
primarily serviced the sugar plantations, adding a hotel at the end of the line
opened up opportunities to expand the number of people riding the train.
Passenger travel was an add-on opportunity that not only included train
rides; they also operated a bus system.
However, the hauling for the agricultural ventures was the most
lucrative.
Typical hotels, like the Moana and later the Alexander Young Hotel in
downtown Honolulu, served the traditional function of accommodating visitors;
Ben F. Dillingham’s hotel sought that, as well as the diversified use of his
train line.
On the continent, railroads were building hotels on their lines as a
means to enhance the passenger counts – Hawai‘i, through OR&L, was doing
the same.
By the early-1900s, the expanded railway cut across the island, serving
several sugar and pineapple plantations, and the popular Hale‘iwa Hotel. They even included a “Kodak Camera Train”
(associated with the Hula Show) for Sunday trips to Hale‘iwa for
picture-taking.
When the hotel opened on August 5, 1899, guests were conveyed from the
railway terminal over the Anahulu stream to fourteen luxurious suites, each had
a bath with hot-and-cold running water.
Thrum’s ‘Hawaiian Annual’ (1900,) noted, “In providing so tempting an
inn as an adjunct and special attraction for travel by the Oahu Railway – also
of his (Dillinghams’s) creation – the old maxim of ‘what is worth doing is
worth doing well’ has been well observed, everything About the hotel is first
class…”
The weekend getaway from Honolulu to the Hale‘iwa Hotel became hugely
popular with the city affluent who enjoyed a retreat in "the
country."
Reportedly, a round-trip, two-day excursion by train from Honolulu to
Hale‘iwa, around Ka‘ena Point, cost $10.
It included an overnight stay at the Hotel, a tour through Waialua sugar
mill and a ride up to Wahiawa to tour the plantations.
The original manager was Curtis Iaukea, who had been chamberlain to
Kalākaua’s royal household and was famed for his knowledge of protocol.
To while away the time there, the hotel recreational activities offered
guests golf (reportedly the second course to be constructed in the islands,)
tennis, fishing, canoeing and glass-bottom boat rides.
With the opening of the Hale‘iwa Hotel, the business climate expanded
and tourism began to play a hand in the area. Many of the early business
families and their original business buildings still remain in Hale‘iwa town
today. Some of the town's buildings are
protected landmarks.
As noted in ‘The Union Pacific Magazine,’ (1924) “there are few more
charming spots in the Hawaiian Islands than this delightful hotel with its
bungalow cottages for guests and its beautiful grounds sloping gently back to
the bank of a crystal clear river that runs out between lava rocks to the sea”.
By the late-1920s, it was hard to maintain the luxury and level of
service at the hotel. What had been
built two decades before to lure passengers to ride the train no longer
applied, as more and more people owned cars.
In 1930 the railroad closed the hotel and it became a private ‘Haleiwa
Beach Club.’ Later, the Haleiwa Hotel
became the ‘Haleiwa Army Officer’s Club.’
During the height of its popularity, the hotel had made the name
Hale‘iwa famous, and when its, ultimately, doors closed in 1943; its name
remained as the name of the surrounding community – Hale‘iwa.
The last ride on OR&L’s train operations was on December 31, 1947,
ending 58-years of steam locomotives hauling all kinds of people, freight and
other around O‘ahu.
By 1953, the aged, termite-ridden structure had been torn down. Hale‘iwa Joe’s restaurant now stands where
the Hale‘iwa Hotel once stood.
The image shows the Hale‘iwa Hotel in 1902. (Some of the information here is from Next
Stop Honolulu – The Story of OR&L and North Shore Chamber of
Commerce.) In addition, I have included
other images of the Hale‘iwa Hotel in a folder of like name in the Photos
section on my Facebook page.
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