[Pictorial Map of Oahu] / Piggy Bank Rates on U-Drives (verso).

Description

This is a 1965 Tradewind U-Drive pictorial map of Oahu, Hawaii, issued as a promotional piece for guests of seven Waikiki hotels and precisely dated by a rate comparison printed on the verso: “Prices on Chevy II as quoted May 25, 1965.”

Charming, colorful, and brimming with period detail, it captures Oahu six years after statehood, in the full flush of Hawaii’s postwar tourism boom, when Waikiki was reinventing itself as one of the great resort destinations of the modern world.

The Map in Detail

The map covers Oahu in its entirety, printed in a warm red-on-cream palette with illustrated pictographic vignettes scattered across the island — surfers off Waimea Bay, marlin fishing offshore, polo ponies at Mokuleia, pineapple fields in the interior, sugar cane near Pearl City, and hula dancers at Waikiki. Major highways are traced in bold lines with route numbers, and landmarks are annotated throughout: Schofield Barracks and Kaneohe Marine Base acknowledge the island’s continuing military presence; the Polynesian Cultural Center at Laie (opened 1963) and Sea Life Park on the Windward Coast (opened 1964) mark the newest additions to the tourist circuit; and a note at Makua records the production of the 1966 film adaptation of James Michener’s Hawaii, then underway on the Waianae Coast.

The verso is dominated by a bold advertisement for Tradewind U-Drive’s “Piggy Bank Rates,” offering guests of the Reef, Edgewater, Reef Tower, Coral Seas, Waikiki Surf, Islander, and Waikiki International hotels unlimited mileage at $10 per 24-hour day in a 1965 Chevy II — undercutting Hertz and Avis, which were charging $10 per day plus 10 cents per mile.

Historical Context

Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21, 1959, and the years that followed saw a dramatic acceleration in tourism as mainland Americans embraced the new state as an exotic yet safely domestic destination. Jet service from the mainland, introduced in 1959, slashed travel times and opened the islands to middle-class visitors who would never have considered the journey by ship. Waikiki was transformed in these years from a relatively modest resort strip into a wall of high-rise hotels, and the car rental industry became an essential part of the tourist infrastructure, enabling visitors to explore beyond the Waikiki corridor. The hotels listed on the verso advertisement (the Reef, Edgewater, Reef Tower, Coral Seas, Waikiki Surf, Islander, and Waikiki International) are a roll call of the mid-century Waikiki hotel scene, several of which no longer exist in their original form.

Publication History and Census

This map was issued by Tradewind U-Drive, a Honolulu car rental company, in May 1965, as a free promotional piece for hotel guests. Ephemeral tourist maps of this type were discarded freely, resulting in correspondingly low survival rates. No publisher or cartographer is credited on the map itself.