Sixty-five sites in Lahaina cast light on 500 years of the town’s history, including its 19th-century stints as the capital of Hawaii, mission headquarters for Maui and important re-provisioning port for whaling and trading ships.

The Lahaina Restoration Foundation (LRF) is the caretaker of the sites; all except four can be seen on the Lahaina Historic Trail, a self-guided walking tour. You can buy the trail brochure for $2 at the Baldwin Home Museum, Wo Hing Museum and Cookhouse and the visitor center at the Old Lahaina Courthouse or download it free of charge at lahainarestoration.org/lahaina-historic-trail.

Here’s a close look at four of the landmarks.

1. Baldwin Home Museum

Corner of Front and Dickenson streets

Between 1834 and 1835 the Rev. Ephraim Spaulding built a four-room, single-level house with an unobstructed view of the Lahaina landing and roadstead. When he fell ill in 1836 and returned to Massachusetts, he was replaced by the Rev. Dwight Baldwin, who had earned a medical degree from Harvard University.

Baldwin and his wife, Charlotte, lived in the house and served Maui’s mission station, which also included Molokai and Lanai, for 35 years. As their family expanded, so did their house: A bedroom and study were added in 1840, followed by a second story in 1849. Dignitaries, including ship captains and alii (Hawaiian royalty), were frequent guests.

The house is furnished with items dating back to the mid-1800s when the Baldwins lived there.

Built: 1835

Restored and opened to the public: 1966

Factoid: This is the oldest house extant on Maui. Baldwin wrote copious letters describing his family’s life in Lahaina. From those letters, the foundation was able to restore the house as close to the original as possible.

Hours and fees: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily except Friday when it stays open until 8 p.m. for candlelight tours. $7 per person 13 and older; $5 for military, kamaaina and seniors 65 and older, including admission to the Wo Hing Museum and Cookhouse. Children 12 and younger are free. A free Hawaiian music series is presented from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on the last Thursday monthly this year, except November when it’ll be on the third Thursday because of Thanksgiving.

2. Old Lahaina Courthouse

648 Wharf St.

After an 1858 windstorm destroyed Hale Piula, the unfinished palace for King Kamehameha III, coral blocks from it were salvaged to construct the Lahaina Court and Customs House. In addition to those services, the two-story building housed a post office, police station and offices for the governor, sheriff, tax collector and district attorney of Maui. Restoration work in 1925 included a new facade in the stately Greek Revival architectural style.

Now known as the Old Lahaina Courthouse, it is home to the Lahaina Heritage Museum, which chronicles the town’s story, from pre-Western contact through the start of tourism on Maui in the 1960s. Also notable are displays about the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary (the waters offshore of Lahaina are a major birthing and breeding area for humpbacks). Be sure to reserve time for browsing in the Lahaina Arts Society’s two galleries, which showcase the work of Maui artists.

The largest banyan in the United States is in the adjacent park. When the tree was planted in 1873, it was just 8 feet tall. Today it stands more than 60 feet high, shades nearly two-thirds of an acre and is supported by 46 trunks.

Built: 1858-1860

Restorations: Numerous; the most recent was completed in 1998.

Factoid: A courthouse, post office, police station and Health Department offices operated in the building until the 1960s.

Hours and fees: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; free, as are guided 45-minute tours of the museum on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 10 and 11 a.m. and noon. Advance reservations aren’t necessary; meet on the makai (toward the ocean) steps.

3. Wo Hing Museum and Cookhouse

858 Front St.

Sugar plantation workers from China founded the Wo Hing Society in the early 1900s to help maintain ties with each other and their homeland. “Wo” means “peace and harmony” and “hing” means “prosperity,” likely reflecting the kind of life those industrious people hoped to have in Hawaii.

They built their two-story clubhouse in 1912. The upstairs altar room was used for religious ceremonies (it’s now closed to the public). Downstairs was a meeting and social hall that today houses a gift shop and a museum.

Food for gatherings was prepared in the nearby cookhouse, which is now a theater where films of island life made by Thomas Edison between 1898 and 1906 are screened.

Built: 1912

Restored and opened to the public: 1982

Factoid: In 2012 the Sun Yat-sen Foundation for Peace and Education donated the bronze bust of the “Father of Modern China” that’s at the entrance. The Wo Hing Society supported Sun, who made six trips to Maui between 1879 and 191o to plan the 1911-1912 revolt that overthrew China’s last imperial dynasty and established the Republic of China in Taiwan. Sun’s brother owned a ranch in Upcountry Maui.

Hours and fees: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Fees are the same as the Baldwin Home Museum and also include admission there.

4. Hale Pa‘ahao

187 Prison St.

Drunkenness, adultery and “furious riding” (riding a horse too fast) were among the infractions that landed people in Hale Pa‘ahao (“stuck-in-irons house”). The prison comprised two wooden buildings, one for men and the other for women, each with 10 cells with wall shackles.

Only one building remains, and you can see two of its cells. Plant enthusiasts will enjoy strolling through the garden that now brightens the prison yard. Among the greenery flourishing there are heliconia, ulu (breadfruit) and kukui (candlenut), Hawaii’s state tree.

Built: 1853

Restored and opened to the public: 1985

Factoid: The prison’s walls were built with coral blocks from a razed fort that formerly stood on the waterfront.

Hours and fees: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily; free

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.