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Concept
S. Hata Building
Summary
The S. Hata Building is a historic structure in Hilo, Hawaii built by Japanese businessman Hata Sadanosuke (1868 - ?) in 1912. It now contains specialty shops, professional offices, and a Cafe Pesto restaurant.
Hata Sadanosuke was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1868 and immigrated to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1891.
In 1893, Mr. Hata worked as an agent for Odo Shoten in Honolulu ("shoten" means "store" in Japanese), responsible for taking orders from large sugarcane plantations on the Hāmākua Coast which employed many Japanese immigrant workers. This gave him the inspiration to start his own business at Hilo on the Big Island on January 3, 1896 called S. Hata Shoten, Limited. He sold Japanese silks, kimono, as well as eastern souvenirs and provisions. Business was slow in the first years, so he hired out his horse and hackney carriage as a taxicab for visitors.
After the annexation by the United States to become the Territory of Hawaii in 1898, the plantations flourished, as did his business. He moved to a larger building at the corner of Mamo and Keawe streets.
He branched out back to Honolulu and Hiroshima, Osaka, Japan, Kyoto, Japan, and Yokohama, Japan.
Hata Yoichi, Sadanosuke's younger brother (born 1884) also arrived in Hilo and worked as bookkeeper at S. Hata Shoten. The business was so prosperous in 1912 that it needed more space. The previous building became a wholesale food distributing outlet run by Hata Yoichi. Sadanosuke planned a new $25,000 structure on wetlands on Front Street (later renamed Kamehameha Avenue) near the railroad tracks to the plantations. A condition of the United States government's selling this land was that Mr. Hata builds concrete building within a year's time.
At the time it was built, almost all other structures in Hawai'i outside of Honolulu were built of wood. The building is about by of reinforced concrete. Such a large masonry building indicated the upward mobility of the Japanese population. The Hilo Masonic Lodge, Hilo Federal Building and Volcano Block Building are the others from that period that remain.
Official source
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