Although there is not much archaeological evidence, people lived in the areas along Hilo Bay, Wailuku and Wailoa Rivers before the Western world made contact. They were known as the Hilo. They dominated the high mountaintops until the middle 1800s. Hilo means high mountaintop in the original language of the native peoples who lived on the mountaintops. King Kamehameha, the first king of Hawaii, conquered all the islands and then moved the Hilo mountain settlement to the shore after the arrival of outsiders.