The area was originally the site of the first Christian Mission in the area known as Waiakea Mission Station-Hilo Station in 1825;[1] the missionaries had originally established their site on the seasonal flood plain of the Wailuku River, but they moved at the urging of Queen Kaʻahumanu.

[3] Later, a grass house was built and served as the home of Sheriff J. H. Coney until he built a new house across King (now Kalakaua) Street in 1858, a site presently occupied by the East Hawaii Cultural Center (EHCC, a building completed in 1932 and previously used as the old police station and county courthouse).

[4] Hilo park commissioners Dr. Eugene W. Mitchell, Herbert Shipman, and Annabelle Ruddle began designing a park for the former county courthouse site shortly after clearing began, with the help of Robert O. Thompson and his wife Catherine (nee Jones), landscape architects from Honolulu.

[4] The bronze statue of King Kalakaua sculpted and cast by Henry Bianchini was dedicated on August 6, 1988, with a time capsule embedded in its base.

[9] Designed to include the post office at the time, it was built across Waianuenue from the present-day site of the park from 1915 to 1917.

[10] In 1936, an addition in a similar style of was designed by Louis A. Simon to result in a "U" shape with two three-story wings.

[10] The park was named in honor of King David Kalākaua who ruled the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1874 to 1891, often called the "Merrie Monarch" because of his revival of Ancient Hawaiian song and dance.

[12][13] Severance lived across Waianuenue from the 1868 courthouse; the home itself, built approximately 1866 or 1867, had been moved to the intersection of Kilauea and Keawe with the construction of the Federal Building.

[14] One of the trees was moved 5 mi (8.0 km) to Kaumana by Sheriff George Williams when Waianuenue was widened.

[15] A bronze statue of Kalākaua in the middle of the park holds a taro leaf and ipu, a gourd used in ancient chants; the taro leaf symbolizes the bond between native Hawaiians and the aina (land), while the ipu refers to the king's revival of ancient culture.

Also, besides offering a more interesting composition, visually he would not be lost in the branches of the overhead Banyan tree as he would have been if he were standing.

157 names of soldiers and sailors from Hawaiʻi Island killed during World War II were inscribed on top.

A lily pond reflects one side showing a central figure, a winged fighting man representing all combat forces.

Hundreds of residents stood in silence as Shojiro Takayama, who lost two sons in World War II, unveiled the monument.

The other in memory of Hawaii County's honored dead of the Vietnam War inscribed "We leave you our deaths.