Lahaina meaning merciless sun has long been a royal center of Maui. The famed warrior-king Kahekili ruled from here until Kamehameha used canon to defeat him in the early 19th century. Kamehameha I also made Lahaina his capital which it remained until the 1840s when Kamehameha III moved his government to Honolulu.
Whaling ships from America and
around the world started arriving about 1819, using Lahaina as an R&R facility. The hunt for Sperm whale was carried out near Alaska, with the sailors often spending up to three winters in Lahaina until their ship had captured enough whales to justify the voyage. The local humpback whales were not hunted much, because unlike the sperm whales which float when killed, humpbacks sink and were thus impossible to process.
Needless to say Lahaina became a debauched town. Missionaries invited by Queen Keopuolani arrived in 1823, a few years after the first whalers, and set about trying to clean up its morals. A curfew, a fort, a jail and religious persuasion were all employed.
Resentment by the whalers even caused one ship to lob a few cannonballs at missionary homesteads.
Today, remaining historic buildings have been restored and the frontier-like look of the town has been preserved to give the feel of the early tropical outpost which Lahaina once was. Many of these buildings have become up-scale galleries selling a variety of arts and crafts the quality of which is rarely seen except in major urban centers.
Lahaina and the neighboring beach resort of Ka'anapali to the north offer a choice of dozens of resort hotels, a remarkable development considering that until the late 1950s Lahaina's only hotel was the 1901 Pioneer Inn.
Lahaina has no natural harbor and even today larger ships anchor offshore in the straits between Maui and Lanai. Other islands of Molokai to the north and Kahoolawe to the south further shelter this strait.
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