N of Lihue at HI 56, Lihue, Hawaii. County/parish: Kauai.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places March 21, 1978. NRIS 78001025.
1 contributing building.
The Lihue Hongwanji Mission, near Lihue, Hawaii on Kauai, is a historic mission whose construction was started in 1901. It was a branch of the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It is significant as the oldest surviving Japanese Buddhist mission on Kauai; it "reinforced Japanese ties to the mother country by preserving the language, education and cultural foundations, of immigrant Japanese laborers." The Lihue Plantation Company supported its development as a way of indirectly maintaining social control. It included Sunday school classes but the Japanese language school gradually became the most important part of the mission.
It is associated with Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii.
(read more...)National Park Service documentation: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63815933