Where did all the Sugar Plantations and Mills Go? Old Plantation Days, November 2012

For this month’s edition of Old plantation Days the accompanying illustration is not a photograph, but a map.  It is a map of the Big Island of Hawaii showing all the different plantations on the island circa 1937.  The map and all the listed mills and plantations tells a story.

In the last decade of sugarcane farming and milling on the island there were only three operating companies…Hamakua Sugar Company, Hilo Coast Processing, and Ka’u Agribusiness, yet this map shows some 15 mills in operation, where did they all go?

Much of what is shown on the map became enveloped and amalgamated into the three operating entities that ended cane cultivation and sugar refining in 1996.

Starting at the North end of the island Kohala Sugar Company was actually the combined operations of Union Mill, Halawa Sugar Company and Niulii Sugar Company.  Kohala Sugar shut down in 1974 and much of the boiling house equipment was sold to Hilo Coast Processing that was being built at that time. 

The plantations of Honokaa, Paauhau, and Laupahoehoe gradually over time became blended into Hamakua Sugar Company having over 35,000 acres of sugarcane and two mills.  One was at Honokaa the other at O’okala.  Previously each of the separate “little” plantations and mills had their own landing and cable line to transfer bags of sugar and kegs of molasses onto awaiting ships off the steep cliffs.

Moving further south, the Plantations of Hakalau, Wailea, Honomu, Pepeekeo, Onomea, and Hilo Sugar all over time became the plantation of Mauna Kea Sugar and Hilo Coast Processing Company.  This plantation had over 18,000 acres of cane and another unique item was the United Cane Planters Cooperative.  This cooperative of independent private sugarcane farmers supplied cane to HCPC and they were paid on how much cane and sugar their farms produced.  So you see that sugarcane farmers on the Hilo Coast were not just “big five corporate farmers”, but also small mom and pops that grew from a couple acres to just under a hundred.  The mills from the smaller plantations were sold as scrap or abandoned in place and are currently heaps of rusted iron and concrete foundations.  The machinery that made up Hilo Coast Processing was much newer and the entire mill was sold at auction.  The mill was dismantled and shipped off to Pakistan where it operates once again!!

To the east of the Big island in Keaau was Puna Sugar Company.  This plantation closed in 1984.  It was the combined operations of Olaa Sugar Company and Puna Sugar Company.  This mill was unique in that it extracted sugar from the cane not through use of crushing and squeezing of the cane but by way of a Diffuser.  Think of a diffuser as a giant coffee pot where hot boiling water is poured over the shredded cane over and over again until all the sugar stored in the cells was removed.

To the southern district of Ka’u we end our Big Island journey and sugarcane plantations.  Ka’u Agribusiness and it’s mill shut down in 1996, the last one on the island.  It was actually the combined plantations and mills of Hutchinson Sugar, Hilea Sugar, Naalehu Mill, and Hawaiian Agricultural Company.  This plantation grew a crop of sugarcane for over three years before harvesting.  The high elevation and cold winters of Ka’u made for slow growing cane.  However, the Tons Sugar per Acre yield (TSA) from Ka’u was on average the highest of any plantation of the island.   When this plantation closed down it’s mill was fairly new as well, and like HCPC was sold at auction.  The mill and boiling house was dismantled and shipped off to El Salvador where it operates again!

So look at the map, think of the many mills all operating independently, then combining, then oddly enough being shipped off island and are now operating in the far reaches of the world.