#OTD 1889: Oahu Railway & Land Company (OR&L) began operating their Railroad on Hawai`i’s third largest island, Oahu.

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#AceHistoryDesk – Today in History – On November 16, 1889, the Oahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L) began operating on Hawai`i’s third largest island, Oahu.

Hawaiian Government Survey; W.D. Alexander, Surveyor General, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands;…. C. J. Lyons, 1881. Transportation and Communication.Geography & Map Division

The brainchild of Massachusetts native Benjamin Franklin Dillingham, the railroad made it possible to move agricultural products from inland to port, stimulating the local economy and providing a valuable transportation route for decades.

Dillingham arrived in Hawai`i in 1865 as first mate of the sailing ship Whistler. Prevented by a fractured leg from returning to sea, Dillingham made Oahu his home and began investing in its future. Within four years, he was a partner in a local hardware company supplying goods for the growing sugar industry. Dillingham also invested in a dairy business. He was interested in real estate, but failed to raise the money to purchase the land for speculation. In 1888, Dillingham obtained a concession from the Hawai`i legislature to build the OR&L and succeeded in raising the money to build this venture. He scheduled the opening of the short line-railway, which originally ran nine miles, to coincide with the birthday of Hawaiian King Kalakaua.

Early revenues for the OR&L were meager, but as Dillingham had foreseen, the railway’s presence stimulated land sales and new agricultural ventures, including pineapple and sugar plantations. By the early 1900s, the expanded 160-mile railway cut across the island, serving several sugar plantations, pineapple farms, and the popular Haleiwa Hotel. As Oahu’s pineapple, sugar, and tourism industries grew, profits for Dillingham’s railway followed suit.

The Port City of Honolulu. R.W. Perkins, c1913. Panoramic Photographs. Prints & Photographs Division.

An additional and significant source of revenue for the OR&L came from passenger fares to and from the U.S. Army’s Schofield Barracks near the island’s center.

From 1909 until the late 1930s, and again during World War II, the OR&L transported troops across Oahu, which had few cars and often shoddy roads. After World War II, the railway’s fortunes changed as passenger revenues plummeted and trucks began taking over the agricultural business. The OR&L abandoned service outside Honolulu and its harbor in 1947. In 1972, it closed its remaining service to the Iwilei canneries and docks. The OR&L right-of-way and terminal are on the state and National Register of Historic Places.

Learn more about the Oahu Railway and Land Company in Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers. Search on Oahu Railway to find items such as “Railway Systems of the Hawaiian Islands.” Evening bulletin. (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii), November 30, 1901, Evening Bulletin Industrial Edition.

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