Kualoa Regional Park

This guide to Kualoa Regional Park in Honolulu opens with the small island offshore known in Hawaiian tradition as Mokolii, said to be the tail of a lizard monster slain by the goddess Hiiaka. It traces the ridge's centuries as one of Oahu's most sacred grounds, tied to ruling chiefs, before the land changed hands in 1850 when an American missionary doctor bought hundreds of acres from King Kamehameha III. Sailors later gave the little island a nickname of their own, for its cone shape.