Hilo, Hawaii
Until recently, windward Hawaii's major city, HILO, was the economic and political powerhouse of the island. It's still the capital, and home to 45,000 people, but as the sugar mills close and the significance of Kona-side tourism increases, it now feels more like a rather traditional small town. As a place to visit, it's relaxed and attractive, spread over a surprisingly large area but with an appealingly old-fashioned downtown district where you can stroll between friendly cafes, street markets and historic sites.
In the early 1970s, Hilo made a bid to become a major tourist center, but mass tourism has never taken off here; quite simply, it rains too much. Hilo averages 130 inches of rainfall annually, with fewer than ninety rain-free days per year. Most mornings, however, start out clear and radiant; the rain falls in the afternoon or at night, and America's wettest city blazes with wild orchids and tropical plants.
As well as having the only airport along the Hamakua coast, Hilo holds all its hotels. There are no sizeable sandy beaches, and tourists who come here are drawn largely by the beauty of the nearby coast. The fifty-mile excursion up to Waipi'o Valley is irresistible, but nearer at hand you can enjoy the delightful Pepe'ekeo Scenic Drive, or the mighty Akaka and Rainbow falls.
Hilo stands where the Wailuku and Wailoa rivers empty into an enormous curving bay, named "Hilo" by ancient Hawaiians in honor of the first crescent of the new moon. In 1796, Kamehameha the Great chose the best natural harbor on the island to build his peleleu, a fleet of eight hundred war canoes for his campaigns against the other Hawaiian islands. Characterized by his enemies as "monstrosities," these hybrid Western-influenced vessels carried mighty armies of warriors; some say they were never destroyed and still lie hidden in caves along the Kona coast.
The port prospered in the nineteenth century, when a strong missionary influence enabled it to present itself as a clean-living alternative to dissolute Honolulu. In the words of the evangelist Titus Coan in 1848:
No man staggers, no man fights, none are noisy and boisterous. We have nothing here to inflame the blood, nothing to madden the brain. Our verdant landscapes, our peaceful streets, our pure cold water, and the absence of those inebriating vials of wrath which consume all good, induce wise commanders to visit this port in order to refresh and give liberty to their crews.
Hilo became the center of the Big Island's burgeoning sugar industry, shipping out raw cane and serving as the arrival point for immigrants from around the world, and in the process acquired an unusually radical labor force. From the 1930s onwards, local workers spearheaded successive campaigns against the "Big Five" companies that had long dominated the Hawaiian economy. Fifty people were injured in the "Hilo Massacre" of August 1, 1938, when strikers were attacked by armed police, and strikes in 1946 and 1949 helped to end the long-term Republican domination of state politics.
The innermost segment of the bay, encompassing both port and town, is protected by a long breakwater. In principle, this is a very calm stretch of water, but its funnel shape means that during great storms it can channel huge waves directly into the center of town. Cataclysmic tsunamis killed 96 people in April 1946, and an additional 61 in May 1960. Lava flows have also repeatedly threatened to engulf Hilo; in 1881 Princess Ruth Ke'elikolani summoned up all her spiritual power to halt one on the edge of town, while in 1984 another flow stopped eight miles short.