From Lincoln Elementary School to Historic Linekona — Tales from the Past

ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT M. FOX

The Linekona building was founded as a school to teach English to Hawaii’s native children.

Let’s say you went to Lincoln Elementary School — next to Thomas Square — in the early 1950s. By the time you reached the sixth grade, you had had Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address drilled into you so often that you can recite it probably even today.

More than that, the school put on a play about Abraham Lincoln and his family on Lincoln’s birthday each February, and it was akin to being picked as prom king and queen in high school to be chosen to play Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln in sixth grade. The play included Lincoln-era costumes like the tall, silk stovepipe hat plus stiff, formal dress suit for him and tight-laced, heavy fabric long dress with shawl and bonnet for her.

These were local kids in the ’50s, so can you imagine these 12-year-olds in period costume on the school stage barefoot?

Lincoln School was quite a place in its heyday, educating such luminaries as former Honolulu Advertiser owner and philanthropist Thurston Twigg-Smith and Claire Olsen Johnson, former president and longtime member of the board of trustees of Punahou School. Other notable alums were Alexander & Baldwin’s dynamic leader Bobbie Pfeiffer, Maui’s jocular and popular Mayor Hannibal Tavares, and real estate mogul and community leader Sheridan Ing (the latter three are deceased).

It was fun hearing Claire reminisce about playing Mrs. Lincoln in sixth grade with Alex Jamile as Mr. Lincoln. Alex became a top executive at Bankoh and his brother Clinton, who played Honest Abe a few years after his brother, is a department head with the City & County.

Luckily, this historic, storied school building is alive and well after falling into ruins in the late 1970s.

According to the National Register of Historic Places’ nomination form, “The school (Lincoln) is significant in the history of education in Hawaii. … Its history is traced back to the 1831 Oahu Charity school … established to teach the English language to half-whites … and for a number of years was the only English-speaking school in Hawaii.” Apparently it faced some financial difficulties in the mid-1850s and was renamed the Town Free School.

It became part of the superintendent’s kuleana in 1859. Hono­lulu grew and needed a high school and so in 1908, what we know today as Linekona was built as McKinley High School. It served that purpose until 1923 when the larger, present McKinley High School was built on King Street.

The building was renamed Lincoln and from 1923 until 1957, it served as the main elementary school in Honolulu.

After a new elementary school was built on Punchbowl in 1957, Linekona was dedicated to teaching children with learning disabilities. In the 1970s teaching English as a second language was its main focus, almost reverting back to its original mission.

In the late 1980s, several events crossed to bring Linekona to the sterling educational facility it is today. For one thing, the neighboring Honolulu Academy of Arts was outgrowing its classroom space on its main campus. For another, Twigg-Smith was looking for a space for his private collection (which ended up at the Cooke-Spalding House, which this column covered in October).

But over many years, termites and our tropical weather had made the building so unusable that, as it turned out later, only the walls could be saved.

Into this breach stepped two giants of this community: Henry Clark and Sam Cooke. They and the academy worked out a deal with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to lease the property on a long-term basis with one proviso: that the building’s exterior and public hallways be restored to their original condition since the building is on the state and national registers of historic places. Then they set about raising the $8 million it took to restore the building and grounds.

According to Hawaii Architect magazine of May 1990: “To restore the exterior and reconstruct the interior with the historical accuracy demanded, project architect Bill Brooks of CJS Architects (now with Ferraro Choi) relied on the plans of the original architect, H.L. Kerr. Original details were replicated and the grand stair was reconstructed using carefully salvaged handrails and balusters.”

The then-director of the Academy of Arts (now the Honolulu Museum of Art), George Ellis, said at the 1990 dedication of Linekona: “If a student from 1908 was to enter the hallway today, it would look no different than it did then. But inside there is a feeling of light and space and beauty that promotes artistic creativity and learning.”

Vince Hazen, who runs Linekona for the present museum director, Stephan Yost, says that “feeling of light and space” is so popular that last year thousands of kids and adults took classes ranging from drawing and art and ceramics to such specialized studies as jewelry fabrication and basketry.

Hazen says, “We see this building as a work of art — as a piece of art in our own collection — and we want to preserve it.”

Keep Hawaii Hawaii is a monthly column on island architecture and urban planning. Robert M. Fox, president of Fox Hawaii Inc., studied architecture in California and Japan. He was one of the founders of the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation in 1974. David Cheever, owner of David Cheever Marketing, has served on the boards of the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation and the Hawaii Architectural Foundation. Send comments to keephawaiihawaii@staradvertiser.com.