Lucius E. Pinkham - Life

Life

Pinkham was born September 19, 1850 in Chicopee, Massachusetts. He attended public schools in Boston and Hartford, Connecticut. Although he intended to attend Yale, a horseriding accident prevented him from walking for several years and he never attended college. Pinkham arrived in Hawaii in 1892 to build a coal handling plant for Oahu Railway and Land Company, and then went to California in 1894. From 1898 to 1903 he was manager of Pacific Hardware, another family business of Benjamin Dillingham. He also oversaw well projects for the sugar plantations.

On April 13, 1904, Pinkham was appointed President of the territorial Board of Health. While President of the Board of Health, he developed the idea of dredging the marshlands of Waikīkī via a two-mile long drainage canal. Although the idea was approved by the Board of Health, no action was taken on the proposal and he was removed from the Board of Health on April 12, 1908. Pinkham was appointed governor by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson on November 29, 1913, succeeding Governor Walter Frear. He was the first governor from the Democratic Party of Hawaii.

In 1917, the deposed former monarch of the Hawaiian Islands, Queen Liliʻuokalani, died and was buried at the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii. The construction of what would become the Ala Wai Canal and the drainage of the Waikīkī marshlands are credited for enabling the development of Waikīkī as a tourist center, and are considered to be one of the most enduring legacies of Pinkham's tenure. He was replaced by Charles J. McCarthy on June 22, 1918.

Pinkham died November 2, 1922 in San Francisco, California.