DAWN OF ELECTRICITY FOR PLANTATIONS, Old Plantation Days, September 2012

Continuing with the theme of energy, Old Plantations Days moves into the era of Electricity.  How did the plantations create and supply electricity to the mills and camps, it was through the use of water.  We have often talked about the vast network of flumes that supplied water to the mills and also transported the cane from the fields far away.  Miles and miles of flumes first made of wood, then from aluminum.

The plantations of the Hamakua Coast, Puna, and Ka’u were all UNIRRIGATED plantations, yet they depended on water as much or more than the dry irrigated plantations of Maui, Oahu, and Kauai.  Primarily it was water that transported cane, but now with the dawn of electricity and the ability to light the homes at night, and brighten the dark and hidden recesses of the mills, electricity was the new greatest thing to expand and exploit.  It was the era of the industrial revolution and Hawaii plantations were leading the front lines.

Prior to the incorporation of public utilities such as HELCO or HECO, it was the plantations that supplied electricity.  They did so for the benefit of themselves and their employees.  The first electric lines were strung by Onomea and Hilo Sugar Companies.  The electrons that flowed through those ancient copper lines and rudimentary clay insulators came from the dynamo of a HYDROELECTRIC power plant.  The water that flowed so voluminously and freely down the valleys was captured in the flumes, and then stored in a reservoir above the mill.  At the mill was the PELTON WHEEL impeller that transferred the power of flowing water into turning the shaft of the generators and “field”.  The field is a mass of tightly bound copper in a large round cage.  As the dynamo turns the field generates electricity that flows into the power lines of the plantation.

These power plants fabricated just after the turn of the century are pieces or art as much as they are machinery.  I have seen the remnants of a few of these power plants.  The iron work around the field is very ornate with a lot of flower and flourishes in the cast metal.  It was obvious that the fabricators of the electric power plant were proud of their creation to the point of embellishment!

Unfortunately not many of these creations remain today.  The scrap metal guys that dismantled the sugar mills surely found these machines as high sources of good paying copper.  I was appalled to see the way the scrap companies dealt with the dismantling of the mills.  There was no regard for pieces or unique art or mementoes of old plantation creativity.  To them it was all a commodity that had to be dealt with and they did so very effectively.  That was their job, and  I cannot fault them too much, I just wish I could have had a say in saying what should be saved as history and what should be sent to Korea to be melted down and made into Kia’s and Hyundai’s to be sold back to us!

I mentioned HELCO earlier, at its inception I noticed that it was called Hilo Electric Light and Refrigeration Company.  Also, many of the Board of Directors of HEL(R)CO were managers and Directors of the Plantations.  It was a very familial and paternalistic association of power brokers in Hawaii that likely created the public utilities we have today.

Let’s now move into the current day and the State Governments’ mandate towards energy self sufficiency.  The rivers of the Hamakua Coast were once tapped effectively and repeatedly by the plantations for power.  Shouldn’t we look into doing the same today?!