Post #172016 by tikicleen on Thu, Jul 14, 2005 1:00 PM

i just wanted to thank everyone for their positive comments toward this post. it was a lot of work!
researching the islander was something i've been wanting to do for years, but never really had the block of time to do it. the hat and i put in a lot of hours researching this baby.

tang~ to answer your question, i highly recommend visiting the local library of where the place was located and finding the directories. old directories are so fascinating, and so different from today's yellow pages. they had advertisements, business listings, AND listings of where people lived & worked & business ownership! so we could always back-track to see who owned what and where someone was working. we also visited the microfilm section quite a bit in looking at old articles, old advertisements, and obituaries. another place full of information was the county building department. this is where we could review building permits and such. in the case of the islander, the permit office unfortunately purged all of their blue prints from this era. the final step was tracking down people who worked or went to the islander and interviewing them. we also were a little lucky in that the building still exists and neil pollard still runs the place. so he was able to provide a lot of information.

but trust me, when you commit to research something like this, you get sent out on A LOT of wild goose-chases! we had our share, which put us in some awkward situations at times. :)

puamana~ yes! definitely take a picture of that minnie's menu and post it on here. too bad there isnt a date....i never could get a firm answer as to when gong lee took it over.

if anyone else has stories, rumors, pictures, postcards, matchbooks, etc, that relates to the places mentioned, or were once owned by hop louie, please share with us by posting it on this thread.

mahalo again everyone! you guys are great! :drink: