Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
On June 11, 1877, King Kamehameha Day, then-king David Kalakaua donated some 140 acres
of land to the people of Hawaii for Hawaii's first park. He asked that the park be named after
his beloved wife, Queen Kapiolani, and he celebrated the opening of this vast grassy area with
a free concert and “high stakes” horse races (the king loved gambling) on the new horse-ra-
cing oval he had built below Diamond Head.
The horse races, and the gambling that accompanied it, were eventually outlawed, but the
park—and the free concerts—live on. Just a coconut's throw from the high-rise concrete jungle
