In 1931 three men met in New York. Their focus was China, but their actions would forever change Hawaii.

The three were aviator Charles Lindbergh, Pan American World Airways President Juan Trippe and engineer Andre Priester. Four European airlines were expanding toward China, and Pan Am wanted a piece of the Asian market. World trade with Asia at the time was estimated at $10 billion a year.

Pan Am had begun in 1927 flying mail between Key West, Fla., and Havana. It expanded to Central and South America. Now it wanted to expand to China. How would it do that? The three men concluded that they could hop from island to island across the Pacific. By a twist of fate, Hawaii, Midway, Wake and Guam were all U.S. territories.

In October 1936, 75 years ago this week, the first seven passengers boarded a Pan Am Clipper in California. The flight averaged 157 miles per hour at an altitude of 10,000 feet. Between Oahu and Molokai, 60 military planes provided a sky-filling escort. Twenty-one hours after it had taken off, the China Clipper touched down in Pearl Harbor.

Today we might think that 21 hours would be excruciating, but the alternative was six days at sea on Matson’s Great White Ships.

The clippers were luxurious and spacious. They had chairs, couches, beds, men’s and women’s restrooms, and suites. Stewards in naval-looking uniforms served gourmet food on fine china.

Before air service, Hawaii was too far away for most mainlanders to think about. Fewer than 20,000 visited our islands in a given year. Sugar and pineapple plantations dominated the economy.

Air service brought us closer to the mainland and launched a tourism boom. Thirty years later, Pan Am President Harold Grey said the air age "was perhaps the most vital factor in the emergence of the islands, in their booming economy and their eventual achievement of statehood."

Here are a few things you might not know about the Pan Am Clippers:

» The clippers were seaplanes and landed at Pearl Harbor. Their original dock is now a naval officer’s house.

» "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenbery was once a clipper pilot.

» Franklin Roosevelt was the first American president to fly, and it was in a Pan Am Clipper.

» The one-way fare from San Francisco to Hawaii in 1936 was $360, equal to $5,500 in today’s dollars.

» Juan Trippe was just 28 years old when he founded Pan Am. Six years earlier he had founded Long Island Airways.

» None of the original Pan Am Clippers remain.

Bob Sigall, author of "The Companies We Keep" books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.