Some Hawaii companies and nonprofits have been around for 50 or 100 years, and some for nearly 200 years. The kingdom of Hawaii became a republic, then a territory and a state in the past two centuries.
Our economic base evolved from whaling to agriculture to tourism. The population soared. Workers left sugar and pineapple plantations and found jobs and started companies.
Tsunamis and hurricanes battered our shores. The stock market rose and crashed and rose again. It became much more costly to do business in Hawaii.
That any organization could survive all these challenging ups and downs is really astounding. Some didn’t make it but many others did. Here are some that are celebrating important milestones this year.
But first a few questions: Which church was founded by high school students in 1923? Which taxi company helped launch Danny Kaleikini’s career? What did the public think of when automatic switching replaced human telephone operators in 1910?
140 years: Hawaiian Telcom
King David Kalakaua loved technology. During his reign, from 1874 to 1891, two major inventions caught his attention: Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1876 and Thomas Edison’s light bulb in 1879. Kalakaua wanted both in Iolani Palace. It didn’t take him long to get them.
The first phone on Oahu was installed at the palace in September 1881 by the American Bell Telephone Co. In 1883, Kalakaua granted Hawaiian Telcom, then named Mutual Telephone Co., a charter to provide phone service in Hawaii.
In November 1886 a steam engine was installed at Iolani Palace that provided power to 50 incandescent lamps. The following year, the number of incandescent lights rose to 325. The White House didn’t have electric lighting until 1891.
In the beginning, telephone operators connected one person to another. They also conveyed news and messages. Automatic switching and dial telephones came to Honolulu in 1910, but many mourned the passing of “Central,” as the operators would answer. “The telephone has lost its soul!” The Honolulu Advertiser cried. “The girls are gone!”
In the 1930s, radio telephones connected the major islands to one another and the mainland. Fourteen customers could call the mainland from Hawaii simulta- neously. Phone booths also began appearing in the 1930s.
In October 1957 the first Pacific telephone cable came ashore at Hanauma Bay and connected the mainland to Honolulu. It was capable of handling 36 separate conversations at the same time.
In 1989, fiber-optic cables were laid across the Pacific. Since 2011, Hawaiian Telcom has invested more than $1 billion to expand the next- generation fiber network that provides over 300,000 homes and businesses with access to reliable, high-speed internet service.
It announced this week that Lanai is the first Hawaiian Island fully enabled with fiber.
Fiber-optic cables are 100 times more energy-efficient than copper lines and use less energy to transmit data, according to the trade association U.S. Telecom.
Now, 140 years after its founding, Hawaiian Telcom is one of just a few companies still in business in Hawaii today that was chartered by Hawaiian royalty.
100 years: Church of the Crossroads
In the early part of the 20th century, Hawaii was often segregated by ethnic groups. Those in plantation housing often lived apart from other groups. Interracial marriage was discouraged.
It was unusual, therefore, that Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese and Caucasian young people would come together to form a church in 1923.
In the early 1920s this multiracial group began meeting together in Sunday school classes at the Mission Memorial Building on King Street.
As they were about to graduate from high school, their advisers urged them to return to their own ethnically separated churches. They challenged the suggestion. Instead, they formed a multiracial church with services in English.
Frank Scudder suggested the name to represent the crossing and meeting of races, cultures and religions.
The current property at 1212 University Ave. was purchased in 1930. A structure was built in 1933 and grew from there. Inside, you will see symbols of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. It is indeed a melting pot in more ways than one.
85 years: Charley’s Taxi
Hawaii’s oldest taxi service, Charley’s Taxi, opened in 1938. Charley’s had a taxi stand on King and Richards streets in the 1940s and 1950s. Drivers waited for a call to come in rather than cruise for customers, which wasted gas.
On Friday and Saturday nights back then, some of the cabdrivers gathered together between fares to play music and sing. A young Roosevelt High School boy (class of 1955) used to attend these jam sessions. He had a great voice, and listeners rewarded him when he sang.
That young man from Papakolea was the late Danny Kaleikini. He was encouraged by the applause and tips to pursue a professional career. Eddie Kamae and the Kalima Brothers also got their start at these jam sessions.
75 years: Foodland Super Markets
In 1927, 17-year-old Maurice “Sully” Sullivan felt he had a choice: go to school and eventually become a schoolteacher in County Clare, Ireland, or immigrate to America.
Sullivan didn’t care much for school and chose to come to America. He got a job with the A&P Tea Co., the largest grocery chain in America, and by 1942 was a manager. When World War II began, the Army took advantage of his grocery background and assigned him to the Oahu commissary and mess halls as a buyer.
In the course of his island buying trips, he met the Lau Kun family, who operated the Lanikai Store.
After the war, Sully was discharged from the Army and went to work at the Lanikai Store. On May 6, 1948, they opened the first modern supermarket in Hawaii, at Market City.
The opening day crowds were so large that the front doors had to be locked, allowing only a few people at a time.
Sullivan brought McDonald’s to Hawaii in 1968, and at one time operated more than 75 restaurants in Hawaii, Guam, Saipan and Ireland.
Today, Foodland has 31 stores and employs more than 3,400 at Foodland, Foodland Farms, Food Pantry and Sack N Save stores on four islands.
70 years: Hawaii Handweavers Hui
Until modern times nearly everything we wore was handwoven on looms. That task has been largely taken over by machines, but a small group in Hawaii perpetuates the old tradition.
The Hawaii Handweavers Hui traces its roots to the new University of Hawaii Art Department, which began a weaving program in 1946.
Six women from the program created Hui Mea Hana (“a group of people working with their hands”) in 1953.
From the 1950s to 1990, the Hawaii Handweavers Hui was based at Foster Gardens where members collaboratively wove on three looms. Members incorporated natural fibers collected from the garden grounds in their weaving, selling them at the Foster Garden Sale.
From 1990 to 2021 the Honolulu Academy of Art School at Linekona (now the Honolulu Museum of Art School) held classes in traditional and contemporary weaving as well as providing a home for the hui’s bimonthly meetings, workshops and biennial exhibitions.
In 2021 the Hawaii Handweavers Hui established a studio in Honolulu’s Chinatown. With more than a dozen floor looms, weaving and spinning equipment and supplies, and an extensive library of books on the textile arts, the group has established itself as an educational center for the textile arts: spinning, weaving, dyeing, basketry, batik and all manner of crafts related to fiber.
25 years: Hawaii Culinary Education Foundation
The Hawaii Culinary Education Foundation was formed in 1998 to champion culinary education at Hawaii’s six community college food programs and several high schools.
Chuck Furuya, Alan Wong, Roy Yamaguchi, George Mavrothalassitis (Chef Mavro), Andrew Le, Ed Kenney, Chai Chaowasaree (Chef Chai), Joan Namkoong and many other chefs have presented programs to 72,000 students and culinary professionals.
Congratulations to all of these organizations for surviving and thriving in what we all know is a challenging business environment. Mahalo for making Hawaii a better place to live.
Do you know of a Hawaii organization that has a significant milestone this year? If so, send me an email.
———
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@yahoo.com or sign up for his free insider newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
