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From Our Files



In 1888, King Kalakaua issued a royal charter, commissioning a magazine. Then titled Paradise of the Pacific, this publication became HONOLULU Magazine, making it the oldest magazine west of the Mississippi. Respectful of this heritage, we look back on the pages of our 119-year history.

JUNE 1922: Paradise of the Pacific examines the impact of Hawai‘i’s burgeoning immigrant population on its public education system. Six out of every 10 children born in the territory are Asian, and only 3 percent speak standard English. “The greatest and gravest problems of the school systems, public and private, are those arising from the immense racial and language differences between the Caucasians and Orientals,” writes Riley Allen, then editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. “Of those who are able to make themselves understood by the teacher, the majority use a jargon peculiar to Hawai‘i, a combination of Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and debased English, as meaningless to the American … as would be the Chinook dialect of the Pacific Northwest.”

JUNE 1927: Inspired by Charles Lindbergh’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic, Hawai‘i’s pineapple king James Dole (pictured to the right) issues his historic transpacific challenge. He pledges $25,000 ($295,000 in 2007 dollars) to the first person and $10,000 ($118,000 today) to the second person to fly from North America to Honolulu. Gov. Wallace Farrington tells Paradise of the Pacific, “I know of no other project that will so effectively foster what we need in the development of commercial aviation in the Pacific.” Art Goebel, who piloted the Woolaroc, won the “Dole Derby” after completing a 26-hour, 17-minute flight.

JUNE 1947: Matson Lines advertises a $260 ($2,394 in 2007 dollars) round-trip from California to Hawai‘i on its flagship Lurline.

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