Lorrin A. Thurston
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Lorrin Andrews Thurston (1858–1931), was a lawyer born and raised in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi who published the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (forerunner of the present-day Honolulu Advertiser). The child of missionaries to Hawaiʻi, Thurston played a prominent role in the transformation of Hawaiʻi from a sovereign constitutional monarchy into a territory of the United States.
As Interior Minister of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, Thurston authored the Bayonet Constitution of 1887 that effectively stripped the monarch of all executive power and gave American and European immigrants the right to vote. Later, he led the self-titled Committee of Safety that illegally overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani in 1893. Alleged involvement of the United States Marine Corps in the matter was apologized for a century later by the U.S. Congress in the controversial Apology Resolution of 1993. Thurston drafted the constitution for the Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi and headed the commission sent to Washington, DC to negotiate American annexation. He helped draft the constitution of the Republic of Hawaiʻi, and after annexation retired to private life. As principal owner and editor of the Advertiser, he was a promoter of the tourist and pineapple industries. His fortunes rose considerably as a result of the Islands' annexation by the United States.
Thurston is credited with developing Hawaiʻi's sugar cane plantations and railroads and bringing the first electric street cars to Honolulu. He was also a volcano enthusiast, building the Volcano House (today a hotel at the rim of Kīlauea volcano's summit caldera) and bringing officials and delegations from the United States to see the volcano. He was friends with Thomas Jaggar and supported the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory during its early years. The Thurston lava tube in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park is named after him.
Thurston's daughter Margaret was the mother of Thurston Twigg-Smith.
