A few remnants of Hawaii endure 100 years later [Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)]

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In 2012 you can make a deposit at Bank of Hawaii, buy bread from Love's Bakery or a bicycle at Eki Cyclery. You can shop at C.S. Wo or City Mill.

One hundred years ago, in 1912, you could have made a deposit at Bank of Hawaii, bought bread from Love's Bakery or a bicycle at Eki Cyclery. You could have shopped at C.S. Wo or City Mill.

In some ways Hawaii hasn't changed that much in 100 years. In other ways the changes are dramatic. As we begin 2012, let's look back at Hawaii 100 years ago.

In 1912 Hawaii was a new U.S. territory. Queen Liliuokalani had been forced to abdicate her throne but was still living at Washington Place.

Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole had just been elected to Congress. Lucius Pinkham was governor. Dredging the Ala Wai, completed in 1928, was his idea.

The territory had 190,000 residents. About 45,000 lived in Honolulu, which had just become a city and county four years earlier.

The island was still recovering from a bubonic plague and the 1900 fire in Chinatown that was meant to control it. Many of the residents who had lost their homes bought 5-acre lots in the newly developed area of Kaimuki where land along Waialae Avenue could be bought for $400.

About 15,000 visitors came to our shores in 1912. Some stayed at the Moana Hotel, which had opened in 1901. The Royal Hawaiian Hotel was still downtown at that point. Room rates were about $2 to $3 a day.

The Alexander Young Hotel had recently opened downtown, and its roof garden was the in place for dining and dancing.

The big news that year revolved around water. Duke Kahanamoku set an Olympic record and brought home gold and silver medals from the Stockholm games. And the Titanic showed it was not as unsinkable as had been thought.

There were 25 miles of electric car lines and 125 miles of paved road in Hawaii, and interest in automobiles was growing. We spent about $1 million importing them in 1912. The speed limit was 15 mph. Car dealers said they were cheaper to maintain than horses.

The College of Hawaii moved to Manoa and graduated its first class in 1912. The college had been temporarily located across from Thomas Square, on the corner of Beretania and Victoria Streets, for five years while the Manoa campus was built.

Construction was booming. The dry docks and shipyards at Pearl Harbor were being built, as was the new Library of Hawaii and the Hilo breakwater.

Since the turn of the century, several now-familiar businesses had opened, including the Blaisdell Hotel on Fort Street, the Japanese Charity Hospital (now Kuakini), Dole, Dillingham, Young Laundry, E.K. Fernandez, the Gas Co., Maui Land & Pineapple, Arakawa's, C.S. Wo, Eki Cyclery and First Insurance. Suisan and I. Kitagawa & Co. opened in Hilo.

Bank of Hawaii, Hilo Medical Center, City Mill, Dairymen's (now Meadow Gold), Title Guaranty, Kapiolani Health and Hawaiian Electric had been operating for more than 10 years.

Mutual Telephone and Wo Fat restaurant were 29 and 30 years old by 1912. Alexander & Baldwin had been in business 42 years, Queen's Hospital, the bank of Bishop & Co. (now First Hawaiian), and the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (now the Honolulu Star-Advertiser) were all more than 50 years old.

Castle & Cooke, Love's Bakery, the Pacific Club, New England Financial, Hackfeld and Co. (later Amfac and Liberty House), McInerny, Volcano House, Parker Ranch and Theo H. Davies were 60 years or older.

C. Brewer & Co., the first U.S. business west of the Mississippi, was already 86, and in Japan, Shirokiya was 250 years old in 1912.

Some of our schools were quite established by 1912, including Kamehameha Schools (25), McKinley (47), 'Iolani (49), Saint Louis (66), Punahou (71) and Lahainaluna (81).

Sugar was our major industry in 1912, and the Big Five producers dominated the territory. Fifty companies employed thousands and exported over $50 million in sugar.

Growers exported 11 million pounds of coffee and 200,000 bags of rice. Pineapple production was only 10 years old at the time but rising.

Radio was still 10 years away, and locals flocked to something new: movie theaters. The biggest were the Bijou (where today's Hawaii Theatre is) and the Liberty Theatre, which sat 1,600.

Hawaii was still buzzing in 1912 from its first airplane flight. "Bud" Mars had flown his Curtiss B-18 biplane from the Moanalua Polo Field (now the golf course) two years earlier.

You could read all about it in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, which merged in 1912 from the Hawaiian Star and the Evening Bulletin.

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.

Credit: Bob Sigall