Lucius Eugene Pinkham (September 19, 1850–November 2, 1922) was the fourth Territorial Governor of Hawaiʻi, serving from 1913 to 1918. Pinkham was the first member of the Hawaiʻi Democratic Party to become governor.
Pinkham was born in 1850 in Chicopee, Massachusetts and arrived in Hawaii in 1892 to build a coal handling plant for Oahu Railway and Land Company. He also oversaw well projects for the sugar plantations.
In 1904, Pinkham was appointed President of the territorial Board of Health. While President of the Board of Health, he developed the idea of dredging the marshlands of Waikīkī via a two-mile long drainage canal. Although the idea was approved by the Board of Health, no action was taken on the proposal until Pinkham was appointed governor by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in 1913, succeeding Governor Walter Frear.
In 1917, the deposed former monarch of the Hawaiian Islands, Queen Liliʻuokalani, died and was buried at the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii. The construction of what would become the Ala Wai Canal and the drainage of the Waikīkī marshlands are credited for enabling the development of Waikīkī as a tourist center, and are considered to be one of the most enduring legacies of Pinkham's tenure.
Pinkham died in 1922 in San Francisco, California.
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| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Walter F. Frear |
Territorial Governor of Hawai‘i 1913 - 1918 |
Succeeded by Charles J. McCarthy |
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