FAQs
When did electricity come to Hawaii?
Hawaii’s King Kalakaua was fascinated by new things. One of them was electricity. He and his advisors visited Thomas Edison in New York in 1881 to talk about replacing the kerosene lamps in Honolulu with electric lamps powered by volcanic steam. In the end, Honolulu was one of the first cities in the West to have electric street lights but the power came not from a volcano but from a nearby hydroelectric plant.