Today the harbor anchors a living community. Pearl City and ʻAiea climb the slopes above the East Loch, the old ʻEwa lands still carry families who have called these shores home for generations, and the name Puʻuloa belongs first to a Hawaiian place — a garland of harbors, the waters of pearl — long before it belonged to history. Our designs carry that older, deeper name with pride.
Change came with contact. After Captain Cook reached the islands in 1778, foreign visitors learned the worth of the pearls the Hawaiians had set aside, and Kamehameha — who drew the islands together into one kingdom by 1795 — claimed the oyster beds as his own. Dredging and silt from the 1840s onward smothered the beds, and by about 1901 the pearl oysters of Wai Momi were effectively gone. The harbor's modern course was set by treaty: the Kingdom granted the United States use of the inlet under the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, and exclusive use as a coaling and repair station in 1887, beginning the long naval era that would carry the place's name around the world.
