At the time Wailuku School was dedicated in May 1904 (as Wailuku Public School, renamed Wailuku Elementary School in 1928), it was described as "the handsomest school building on the island or perhaps the country." Designed by a one of the Territory of Hawaii

Territory of Hawaii

The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 7, 1898, until August 21, 1959, when its territory, with the exception of Johnston Atoll, was admitted to the Union as the fiftieth U.S. state, the State of Hawaii.The U.S...

's most prominent architects, C.W. Dickey (then in partnership with E.A.P. Newcomb), it remains the only stone school building in Maui. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on 30 June 2000.

On 21 May 1904 Territorial Senator Henry Perrine Baldwin

Henry Perrine Baldwin

Henry Perrine Baldwin was a businessman and politician on Maui in the Hawaiian islands. He supervised the construction of the East Maui Irrigation System and co-founded Alexander & Baldwin, one of the "Big Five" corporations that dominated the economy of the Territory of Hawaii.-Life:Henry Perrine...

 laid the cornerstone

Cornerstone

The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.Over time a cornerstone became a ceremonial masonry stone, or...

 and buried a cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

 time capsule

Time capsule

A time capsule is an historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians...

 containing an 1866 copy of the Daily Hawaiian Herald (whose most famous reporter was Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

) and other publications from the era, along with an assortment of U.S. and Hawaiian coins

COinS

ContextObjects in Spans, commonly abbreviated COinS, is a method to embed bibliographic metadata in the HTML code of web pages. This allows bibliographic software to publish machine-readable bibliographic items and client reference management software to retrieve bibliographic metadata. The...

 and postage stamps. The time capsule was unearthed on 21 April 2004.

The royal palms that line the driveway were planted on Arbor Day

Arbor Day

Arbor Day is a holiday in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant and care for trees. It originated in Nebraska City, Nebraska, United States during 1872 by J. Sterling Morton. The first Arbor Day was held on April 10, 1872, and an estimated 1 million trees were planted that day.Many...

 in 1905, the old wooden schoolhouse was torn down in 1907, and new classrooms of concrete block were added in 1951. During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the U.S. Army commandeered the building, forcing classes to be held in nearby churches and community buildings.