All have drying towers, which were required for the cloth-covered rubber hoses of the era in which they were built, but which also serve as visual landmarks and decorative elements.

The Waikiki Fire Station on Kapahulu Avenue followed a similar model when it was built in 1927, but it was extensively remodeled in 1963 to fit an evolving Hawaiian rather than Mediterranean style, so it was excluded from the National Register application.

The Central Fire Station at that time was a lava-rock building of two-and-a-half stories designed in 1896 by Clinton Briggs Ripley and C.W.

The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 set the stage for another building boom, as both tourism and migration helped fuel rapid growth during the 1920s.

Many nationally known architects opened offices in the islands, and their designs often reflected a California regional style heavily influenced by the work of Bertram Goodhue at the 1915 Panama–California Exposition in San Diego.