The Haidu Mill or Haikū Sugar Mill was a processing factory for

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

from 1861 to 1879 on the island of

Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...

in Hawaii.

History

The northeastern coast of Maui has a small village named ''Hai kū'' which literally means "sharp break" in the

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language o ...

. The Haiku Sugar Company was chartered on November 20, 1858 by the

Kingdom of Hawaii The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...

. It was one of the first ten companies to go into the sugar business in the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...

. The investors, the Castle & Cooke partnership, contracted with Isaac Adams of Boston and D. M. Weston for a milling machine and boiling house with total cost of US$12,000. The first crop was processed in December 1861. In 1871

Samuel T. Alexander Samuel Thomas Alexander (October 29, 1836 – September 10, 1904) co-founded a major agricultural and transportation business in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Early life In November 1831, the Reverend William Patterson Alexander (1805–1884) and Mary An ...

became manager of the mill. He formed Alexander & Baldwin with his partner Henry Perrine Baldwin, and organized an irrigation system from 1876 to 1878 that allowed more steady crops to be grown in more leeward areas of the island. As a result, Haiku Mill was abandoned in 1879. In 1881 Kahului railroad allowed cane to be carried to larger mills near the town of Kahului. In 1905 the Haiku plantation merged with another to become Maui Agricultural Company, and later became the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company division of Alexander & Baldwin with one remaining mill at Puunene. The Haikū area later became a pineapple plantation. The former cannery at 810 Haiku Road is now a shopping center called the Haiku Marketplace. Only the walls of the mill were left standing when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 6, 1986 as site 86000189, listed as "Haiku Mill". It is state historic site 50-046-1622. The mill was purchased and restored by Sylvia Hamilton-Kerr and as of 2016 was open for tourism.

References

{{NRHP in Maui, Hawaii 1861 establishments in Hawaii Agricultural buildings and structures in Hawaii Agricultural buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii Alexander & Baldwin Buildings and structures in Maui County, Hawaii Dole plc History of sugar Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii Industrial buildings completed in 1861 National Register of Historic Places in Maui County, Hawaii Sugar refineries Tourism in Hawaii 1879 disestablishments in Hawaii Hawaii Register of Historic Places

History

See also

References