President Roosevelt was the first president to ever visit the Kilauea volcano.

Roosevelt visited Hawaii in the summer of 1934. He visited what is called the Big Island, which is where Kilauea volcano is located. While he was there, he went to the Kilauea crater, where he sacrificed some ohelo berries out of respect to Hawaiian legend. 

The legend calls for the berries to be given to Pele, the goddess of fire using the crater. Interestingly, the Kilauea volcano erupted shortly after Roosevelt’s visit in July. It erupted in September, just two months after the president’s visit. Violent eruptions are not extremely frequent for the volcano, which didn’t erupt again until 1952. The volcano is known as a “drive-in” volcano nowadays. 

The action around the volcano is very mild. Visitors to the site can approach the volcano and walk the cooled lava rock in relative safety. Nevertheless, it has been slowly active since 1983. Although the volcano is calm now, at one point it was highly violent and dangerous. Back in 1959, there was a violent eruption that spewed magma up 1,900 feet in the air. 

(Source)