Reed Travel Features
HONOLULU -- Five sugar plantations have closed in less than
three years, ending the industry on the Big Island and Oahu.
Four plantations, with a total of six mills, are left.
They are Amfac/JMB on Kauai, with mills in Lihue and west Kauai,
and on Maui, with a mill at Lahaina; Gay & Robinson on Kauai,
with a mill in west Kauai, and A&B on Maui, with mills at
Puunene and Paia.
Big Island closures were as follows:
* Kau Sugar, based at Pahala, 53 miles south of Hilo, closed
last March, after operating for 125 years.
Owned by C. Brewer, it covered 12,500 acres and employed 240 in
an isolated rural area.
* Hamakua Sugar Co., based at Honokaa, 50 miles north of Hilo,
closed in late 1994.
The independently owned plantation, dating to 1877, totaled
35,000 acres and employed 600.
Oahu closures were as follows:
* Waialua Sugar, which covered 12,000 acres on the north shore,
west of Haleiwa town, closed last October.
Owned by Dole Foods, it opened in 1898 and employed 174.
* Oahu Sugar Co., owned by Amfac/JMB, closed in the spring of
1995, with 200 people laid off. It was situated on 10,500 acres in
west Oahu.
The mill is at Waipahu, once a sugar town and now part of
Honolulu's urban sprawl, west of Honolulu Airport.
On Kauai:
* McBryde Sugar at Koloa, owned by A&B, closed last
September.
The 7,300-acre plantation, which dated to 1835, employed
195.