From Our Files

Our History

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.

1937 “WHAM! BANG! And two reels started humming and did they go! After three hours, lo and behold, a new world’s record for a long-curved yellowfin tuna,” reports Paradise. On July 31st, James W. Harvey, president of Hawaii Big Game Fishing Club, caught an enormous, 265-pound tuna with fellow fishermen Paul Caplener and John B. Ponte. They reeled in four more tuna, scoring a total weight of 827 pounds. “Gentlemen, you have placed the fame of Hawaii definitely on the map as the home of “Big Ones.’” Hawaii’s top ranking wouldn’t stand; the most recent record—405 pounds—was set off the Baja peninsula in 2010.
	1952 Sears, Roebuck and Co. becomes the first store to use realistic Hawaiian mannequins, reports HONOLULU. Sales promotion manager N.E. Surbaugh says, “Scores of photographs of pretty Hawaiian girls were sent to the coast firm in order that the right skin texture and tone could be reproduced.” Sears’ six mannequins were on display at store windows for only three months before Surbaugh received requests from Mainland publications and local merchants to use the mannequins in their own stores.
1987 Mark Evans, an elementary school teacher in Missouri, teaches his students about Hawaii every year. The Mainland kids write down observations, and Evans sent HONOLULU some hilarious samples: “Honolulu is famous for such things as ships, sugar, pineapples and fish. Keeping all this stuff separated is one of the main jobs of Honoluluolians.” “One thing to remember about taking a heavy overcoat there is don’t.” “One of Honolulu’s chief products is Utopia.”