Lionel Walden, 1915 (Wikimedia Commons)
In pre-contact times, Laie was a sanctuary for fugitives. In 1865, the area was purchased by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a “gathering place” for Hawaiian Mormons. President Joseph F. Smith dedicated the site for a temple in Laie in 1915; President Heber J. Grant dedicated that temple in 1919. President David O. McKay founded what is now Brigham Young University’s Hawaii campus adjacent to the temple in 1955. In 1963, the Polynesian Cultural Center, an open-air cultural museum that has since become one of the major tourist attractions in Hawaii, was established next door to BYU-Hawaii in an effort to provide employment for students and to preserve the Polynesian cultures from which many of them came.
It’s mildly amusing, given that this article in the Weekly Standard is about the Biblical Archaeology Review, that I subscribe to, and very much like, both magazines:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/astonishing-biblical-archaeology/article/2007845
Posted from Honolulu, Hawaii
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