George Lycurgus

George Lycurgus (1858–1960) was a Greek American businessman who played an influential role in the early tourist industry of Hawaii. After Queen Liliʻuokalani was overthrown in a coup by the Committee of Safety, he ran afoul of the government of the Republic of Hawaii and was accused of treason. Later he was instrumental in the development of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.

Early life He was born in 1858 in Vassaras (near Sparta, Greece). After his release from the Greek Army, his father decided to leave the family farm to an older brother and agreed to send George to America to join his eldest brother John, in California. In 1877 he traveled in steerage class to New York City, and worked his way across the country. By 1881, the Grotto came to be patronized by such notables as William Randolph Hearst and the sons of the sugar cane baron, Claus Spreckels. He became friends with the sons of Claus Spreckels, whose family owned the Oceanic Steamship Company and a sugar cane business in Hawaii. In 1889 he was supervising shipment being loaded at the docks, when some of the Spreckels family invited him on board for a poker game. By the time he noticed, the ship was on its way across the Pacific. He spent only a week in Hawaii, but must have enjoyed the stay, since he took more trips and spent more time on the islands.

In 1892 he sent for his nephew Demosthenes Lycurgus, who would help him manage his Hawaiian enterprises. Along with other recent immigrants, he formed the Pearl City Fruit Company. Their competition was the Hawaiian Fruit and Packing Company, owned by established descendants of American missionaries such as Lorrin A. Thurston, who was also a powerful politician. Eventually he would sell his restaurant in San Francisco and move to the islands. It became one of the first beach resorts and the area at coordinates is still called "Sans Souci Beach". Celebrities such as Robert Louis Stevenson stayed there on his second trip later that year, and it became a popular destination for tourists from the mainland.

In 1894 Lycurgus made his first trip to the Kīlauea volcano with Admiral Royal R. Ingersoll, sailing to Hilo aboard the USS Philadelphia. The volcano impressed him and he took note of the future possible business opportunities.

A friendship had evolved between Lycurgus and the Hawaiian royal Kalākaua family, who were regulars at his resorts. This earned him the nickname "Duke of Sparta", a title borne by the Crown Prince of Greece. Despite being a commoner, he felt more comfortable with monarchy than the Americans.

In 1893, after the death of Kalākaua, Thurston and other Americans led the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and declared a Republic of Hawaii, hoping to join the United States of America. The new government, controlled by conservative missionaries, fined Lycurgus for selling liquor at his resort. Lycurgus hired a band of Hawaiians who played music honoring Queen Liliuokalani instead of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Hawaii was annexed as a territory of the United States that year and the practical Lycurgus applied for American citizenship.

He opened a restaurant called the Union Grill in Honolulu in 1901 and would hold "Jailbirds of 1895" nights which were not popular with the new government. He phased out of the politics of Honolulu over the next few years. Lycurgus invested in a logging venture in 1907, and bought the Hilo Hotel from John D. Spreckels in 1908.

In 1903, when he returned to Greece to visit his mother, he met and married Athina Gerassimos from Sparta, the second of nine children. She was probably the first Greek woman in Hawaii.

Volcano House

In December 1904, George and Demosthenes Lycurgus became principal stockholders of the Volcano House Company and took over the management of the Volcano House hotel on the more remote Big Island of Hawaii. His nephew Demosthenes always introduced him as "Uncle George" to the guests, which earned him his new nickname.

Kīlauea had been inactive for almost a year, but Lycurgus had other enterprises to keep himself afloat. Two months after the Lycurguses acquired the business, the volcano erupted.

He eventually made peace with Lorrin Thurston, who worked with him for ten years, starting in 1906, to have the volcano area made into Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. However, the Lycurgus family kept a shrine to deposed Queen Liliuokalani at the Volcano House and related the legends of Ancient Hawaii to the visitors.

While visiting Greece in 1914, World War I prevented him from returning. In 1919, Demosthenes Lycurgus traveled to Athens to marry Maria Yatrakos, but died of influenza within a week of his wedding in the 1918 flu pandemic. Finally George was able to return to Hawaii in 1920 with his sister-in-law Poppy Detor.

In 1921 George Lycurgus sold the Volcano House and moved to Hilo, Hawaii. The Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company bought the property and invested $150,000 into expanding it.

At the age of 81, he traveled to Washington, D.C., and convinced influential friends, many of whom (including Franklin D. Roosevelt) had stayed in the Volcano House, to assign the Civilian Conservation Corps to construct a park headquarters building farther back from the cliff. That allowed him to build a more modern hotel at the former Hawaiian Volcano Observatory site. He reopened the new Volcano House (designed by Charles William Dickey) by November 1941.

After another eruption in 1952, at the age of 93, he arranged a publicity stunt involving riding a horse to the rim of the erupting vent and tossing in his ceremonial bottle of gin. Despite the efforts of park officials, the event went off as planned, pleasing the spectators and the press.

Biography