ewa plantation comp.any industrial...

EWA PLANTATION COMP.ANY INDUSTRIAL CENTER (Ewa Sugar Mill) Honouliuli Plain, near intersection of Renton Road and Park Row Ewa Honolulu County Hawaii

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PHOTOGRAPHS

WRITTEN HISTORIC.AL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA

HISTORIC AMERIC.IN BUILDINGS SURVEY Pacific Great Basin System Support Office

National Park Service Oakland, Califomia

BABS No. HI-384

Location:

HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY

EWA PLANTATION COMPANY INDUSTRIAL CENTER (Ewa Sugar Mill)

Renton Road and Park Row intersection Honouliuli Plain Ewa City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii

BABS No. HI-384

This complex of buildings falls within a polygon defined by these UTM coordinates:

A) 04 599920 2360140 D) 04 600160 2359990 B) 04 600010 2360080 E) 04 599930 2359760 C) 04 600090 2360060 F) 04 599770 2359880

See following map of Industrial Center - 2001 for location of these points.

Present Owner: City and County of Honolulu

PzesentOccupant: Buildings slated for demolition are not occupied. One building to remain in Industrial Center (Facility No. 25) is leased to Ewa Villages Non-profit Development Corporation (EVNDC). Others are vacant or to be vacated by the end of June 2002.

Present Use: Only Facility No. 25 is in use, as a storehouse and shop for EVNDC.

Significance: Sugar plantations had a pivotal role in Hawaii's history. They were the main economic engines that fueled Hawaii's change from subsistence agriculture to a commodity-based system. Sugar plantations "were the ruling force behind Hawaii's economy for over 110 years" (Moy 1995: 8:1). They altered the landscapes with large areas of sugar cane plantings, and by the construction of the mills to process this crop and of the villages to house the workers. The importation of labor for sugar plantations is the main reason for the multi-ethnic make-up of Hawaii's current population.

Ewa Plantation Company's significance was due to its large size, long period of operation, high number of intact structures, and role as a model plantation in terms of living conditions and benefits to workers. The contrast with the plantations in the southern United States, which evolved from a history of slavery, was emphasized because "of the notable strides Ewa Plantation made towards fair and just treatment of its workers" (Moy 1995: 8:1).

The Industrial Center of the Ewa Plantation Company grew around the nucleus of the sugar mill building. Today, even though the mill building is gone, the complex is often called the Ewa Sugar Mill. The industrial and scientific emphasis of sugar plantations is a critical aspect of their

DESCRIPTION


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history. This emphasis is exemplified in the mill and related buildings, but it also is seen in the crop and labor management practices. The strict accounting practices and ideal of self-sufficiency in plantation management led to the construction of simple, economical buildings. The history of the buildings in the mill area is complex. The term and the plan for the "Industrial Center" date from 1938. Before that, the arrangement of industrial structures around the mill was decided on a building-by-building basis.

The Industrial Center of the Ewa Plantation Company has been without its nucleus building, the 1902 sugar mill, since 1985. In 2001, 15 historic-period structures remained, some empty, but most used for storage or various industrial uses. Much of the open area between buildings was then in use for storage of vehicles and scrap material. To understand its present condition, the overall setting and historical appearance of the area are first described.

Physical Setting and Relationship to Surrounding Environment

The Ewa Plantation Company (EPC) was a large sugar plantation located on the Honouliuli Plain in the southwestern comer of Oahu, Hawaii. By 1940 it had over 9,000 acres planted in sugar cane (Honolulu Advertiser 1940). In the late nineteenth century, this arid plain was used for cattle ranching (Ewa Plantation Company 1923: 6). There are expansive and dramatic views from the EPC site to the northwest, of the end of the nearby Waianae range (actually one eroded volcanic peak, rather than a range), with less prominent views to the northeast, of the lower and more distant Koolau range. The plantation's lands extended from the West Loch of Pearl Harbor to the ocean shoreline on the west side of Oahu. However, there is generally no feeling of harbor or ocean views from most parts of the plantation, and certainly not from the mill area.

For a century the EPC mill building and nearby camps for plantation workers were surrounded by fields of sugar cane. The extent of the plantation's leased lands is shown on a figure at the end of this report. The land used by EPC for planting was not originally considered ideal for sugar cane cultivation, due to the limited depth of soil on many parts of the raised coral reef that constituted the plain, and due to the limited rainfall in this leeward comer of the island. However, with extensive irrigation, added fertilizer, careful selection of cane varieties, and abundant sunshine, EPC often set sugar production records.

Unlike earlier-established mills, which were sited on sloping land near a running stream, the Ewa Mill was located on an almost level, arid plain. The fluming of the cane to the mill, that was possible in areas of high rainfall and abundant streams, was impossible here. Land transport of cane from the fields, by rail and after 1947 by truck, was used at EPC. Water for irrigation, mill, and village uses was obtained from wells.

The description and history in this report will focus on the mill and industrial buildings of the plantation. However, it is notable that the workers' camps (later called villages) were clustered near the mill. Many earlier plantations had scattered camps across their cane


BABS No. Hl-384 (Page 3)

fields. The advantage of the dispersed camps was that field workers could get to their work areas in less time. The disadvantage was the social isolation of such separate camps. Ewa Plantation Company built most of its camps near the mill, perhaps to save infrastructure costs, or perhaps realizing the social benefits that resulted from a larger community.

Sugar Mill and Surrounding Buildings in the Early Years

The mill location was chosen along the Oahu Land & Railway (OR&L) Company train line, at approximately the center of the Ewa Plantation Company lands. An 1893 photo of the original sugar mill shows a complex of wooden gable-roofed buildings, some with double parallel gable roofs. Rail lines run into two large openings in the complex. Photos taken soon after the new mill was built, in 1902, show a complex of buildings around a larger mill structure, with more numerous rail lines and carloads of sugar cane. In 1902 EPC had seven miles of portable tracks and 29 miles of narrow-gauge permanent tracks (Paradise of the Pacific 1902: 20). Horses and mules were used to pull the cars on the portable track, and locomotives on the permanent rails.

The earliest map found of the mill area is in the 1919 Sanborn Map Company's volume of fire insurance maps for the Territory of Hawaii's sugar mills and canneries. The main mill building had five main sections: a large room for the roller mills, where the cane was crushed; the largest room, where the sugar cane juice was processed; the adjacent sugar bagging and warehouse room; a long fuel room wing, which had one brick and one concrete chimney; and the smallest room, that held the mud presses. Rail lines exited the building here, presumably transporting the left-over materials from the cane-washing operations. There were also two wings attached on the north side of the mill, where the rail lines entered the building. One of these was labeled "Electrical Supplies" and the other "Cane Conveyor and Unloading." Within a few years a different "Electrical Warehouse" building had been constructed, because historic photos show this relatively new building being relocated in 1926, due to expansion of the electrical generating plant.

The buildings supporting the mill and plantation operations were generally clustered near the mill, but, in some cases, residences were located between the mill and industrial structures. Such buildings farthest from the mill on this 1919 map included a fertilizer warehouse, a warehouse for oil and miscellaneous supplies, the blacksmith and carpenter shop, the locomotive roundhouse, the lime warehouse, and warehouse No. 7 for sugar bags. Warehouse No. 2 for sugar and bag was located near the office and the mill. The laboratory, machine shop, pipe & sheet metal shop were also located near the office, on the north side of the mill. A large structure with molasses and massecuite (molasses and sugar mixture) tanks was located at the south comer of the mill. A small building labeled a "rock crusher" was located near the tracks from the mud press room of the mill. Three structures were located in the comer defined by the fuel room wing and the roller mills room: a structure with centrifugal pump and engine; a building housing a steam turbine and generator; and a tri-purpose building with mill supply pumps, ice factory, and soda water bottling functions.

None of the buildings on the 1919 Sanborn map survived into the twenty-first century. However, three 1920s buildings did: Facility No. 22, a 1923 machine shop that is being retained, and two slated for demolition, Facility No. 21 (see HABS No. HI-384-E), a 1920s shop, and Facility No. 17 (see HABS No. HI-384-A), a 1925 sugar warehouse.

EWA PLANTATION COMP.ANY INDUSTRIAL CENTER (Ewa Sugar Mill)

BABS No. Hl-384 (Page 4)

Between 1919 and the late 1930s, some of the plantation's rail lines running to the southwest side of the mill and other industrial buildings had been slightly rerouted. In the 1919 map, rail lines appeared to dominate in the mill area. By the 1930s roads became at least as important as the rail lines, due to the increase in privately owned cars as well as non-rail plantation vehicles. There were not sufficient maps found to date this change, and the project is not mentioned in the EPC annual reports. At least two streets of houses in Mill Village were removed to allow the rail line rerouting.

Mid Twentieth-Century Appearance of the Mill Area/Industrial Center

By the mid-twentieth century, the industrial center adjacent to the sugar mill had been established in the basic form that lasted about fifty years. In the late 1930s and the 1940s new industrial buildings were all built along or near the dirt road that ran from Renton Road to the Ewa train depot along the OR&L Co. line. Six buildings and a lumber rack were built abutting the right-of-way of the dirt road. Five buildings had their gable ends facing the road, and one was oriented at 90 degrees from the others, with its longer side along the road. Two small buildings were built ca. 1939 immediately behind these buildings, and by 1948 a larger storage building and adjacent small electrical building had been erected, farther west than the two 1939 buildings.

One of the biggest changes in the mill area's appearance came with the changeover from rail transport of cane from the fields to the use of Tournahauler trucks in 1947. The plantation rail lines were removed and most of the alignments used for truck roads, but the area near the mill, on the northwest side of Renton Road, was reconfigured. Instead of several rail lines running into the northwest side of the mill, an unloading station with a concrete wall was built. The Tournahaulers carried the cane from the field in a net of chains. They would drive to the wall where cranes would grab the chains and roll the load of cane out onto a feeder table or a storage pile (Ewa Plantation Company 1948: 7).

Another late 1940s change in the mill area was the installation of the hydro-separator pond. This was "a settling basin in which the water from the cleaning plant deposits silt and waste material before going on to the irrigation system" (Ewa Plantation Company 1950). The mud and other material at the bottom was collected and placed on areas where the soil was shallow to improve yields. This pond no longer remains, and its site is now a portion of the Ewa Mahiko Neighborhood Park.

In the 1950s, the only major new building built in the EPC Industrial Center was the bagasse storehouse, in 1956 (see HABS No. HI-384-H). This was one of the biggest buildings in the industrial center, and the only one (besides the small cane car repair pit structure, see HABS No. HI- 384-C) not aligned with the grid formed by Renton Road and the dirt road at right angles to it. In 1954 two 500-ton bulk sugar bins were erected on the southwest end of Facility 17 (see HABS No. HI-384-A). Some minor facilities were also constructed in the 1950s, including tanks for aqua ammonia (a fertilizer), molasses, fuel oil, and condensate water. These tanks were all located close to the mill. A potash mixing plant and pump house were built at the southern comer of the Industrial Center. Two wash racks were built sometime before 1960, one near Renton Road, and the other at the southeast end of the Industrial Center, both southwest of the main dirt road.


BABS No. RI-384 (Page 5)

Late Twentieth and early Twenty-First Century Appearance

The industrial center changed very little between the 1950s and the mid 1980s. When the largest building, the mill, was demolished in 1985, the complex lost its unifying nucleus. The mill was closed in the mid-l 970s after Ewa Plantation Company was sold to Oahu Sugar Company (OSCO), but OSCO continued to use some of the Ewa buildings for sugar-related activities, and leased out others that duplicated its Waipahu facilities. Essentially no maintenance was done on the buildings in the last few decades and repairs were made in the most inexpensive way, with no thought of matching original materials or design.

In the early 1990s, two of the buildings in the EPC Industrial Center along Renton Road were demolished. This was before the Memorandum of Agreement on Ewa Villages was signed. Photographs of and descriptive material on the Oil Storage Warehouse were submitted to the State Historic Preservation Division in September 1993. Photographs and a sheet of drawings of Building B, a plantation vehicle shelter structure, were submitted in December 1993.

The removal of most of the tanks that were built in the 1950s occurred after 1993. The one tank remaining in 2001 was determined to be a fuel oil tank by overlaying the 1960 map of the site on a December 2000 survey map. This riveted steel tank is approximately 23' in diameter and about 13' tall. It is two steel plates high and six around. There is a double line of rivets (spaced 2" on center) on the vertical joints, and a single line or rivets (spaced I Ya " on center) on the horizontal joint. The rivets attaching a lipped ring to the top of the tank are spaced about 4" on center. The tank has a rectangular-plan gable roof over it, built of wood-frame construction with corrugated metal roofing. The gable ends are also covered with corrugated metal. The underside of the roof, where it projects beyond the cylindrical tank, is screened with metal mesh. There are three pipes on the outside of the tank plus a valve at the bottom of the northeast side. Near the pipes is a board with measurements marked, and one pipe has a large wheel-type shut-off control. Most of the tank is obscured by the materials stored around it.

A small building (Facility No. 29A) housing electrical equipment is located on the southwest side of the industrial center. Its exact function and date of construction is not known. Because it is so small, it is not clearly seen on aerial photos. The earliest map that showed it was dated 1960. On this map, a "stiff-leg derrick" was shown near this building, so it may have provided power and perhaps housed controls for this piece of equipment. Near the building, some large geared winches with cables sit on concrete mounts. A sketch of the building plan is included in this report. It is a steel-framed, gable-roof structure with corrugated metal siding and roofing. It has a steel-plate door on the southwest side. This door has a diagonal brace on its interior surface and measures 2'-5" x 6'-0". Two opening on the northwest and southeast sides measure l '-8" wide by l '-2" high.

Five of the EPC Industrial Center buildings will be retained. There are separate HABS reports on eight others, with individual descriptions and histories (see HABS No. HI-384-A through HABS No. HI-384-H). The two minor structures (tank and electrical building) described above did not warrant individual reports.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT


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Late Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century on Oahu and in Hawaii

Ewa Plantation Company, started in 1890, was among the last sugar plantations to be established on Oahu. In the 1840s, the first sugar mill was built in Hawaii. In subsequent decades, sugar became increasingly important as the main cash crop and export item of the kingdom. Many sugar plantations were started soon after the 1875 Reciprocity Treaty between Hawaii and the United States, which allowed Hawaiian sugar into the U.S. duty free. This treaty was extended in 1887, which led to development of more sugar plantations. Since the earlier plantations had been established on the best lands, the new ones were typically on lands that presented more challenges, such as the less rich soil and drier climate of the Honouliuli Plain. James Campbell had Hawaii's first artesian well drilled on his Ewa ranch land in 1879 (Pagliaro 1988: 7). About a decade later, it was still a gamble for the plantation founders that there would be sufficient water for sugar cultivation. It was also a great expense to drill and maintain the wells and pumps. The first ten wells for the plantation were drilled by the McCandless Brothers in 1890, and by 1940, at least 61 more were sunk (EPC 1940: 9-10). Ewa Plantation had an additional challenge at its start since, in 1890, the protectionist McKinley Tariff Act "removed the preferential treatment the American government gave Hawaiian Sugar" (Moy 1995: 8-3). "Hawaii's sugar industry was in serious jeopardy" until this act was replaced with the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act in 1894 (Pagliaro 1987: 12).

Ewa Plantation also started up in the turbulent decade that saw four different forms of government. In early 1893 Queen Liliuokalani, who had succeeded King Kalakaua as monarch upon his death in 1891, was overthrown and a Provisional Government established. The group involved in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy was composed largely of businessmen of U.S. missionary ancestry who were leaders in the islands' sugar-based economy. They set up a Provisional Government and petitioned for annexation to the United States. When this petition was withdrawn by U.S. President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, the Republic of Hawaii was established in 1894. In 1897, with Republican William McKinley in the U.S. President's office, the petition was resubmitted. The Hawaiian Islands were annexed by Congressional joint resolution (not by treaty) in July 1898, just at the end of the four-month Spanish-American War, when the U.S. was also acquiring other island possessions, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Hawaii did not become a Territory of the United States until 1900.

Ewa Plantation Company History

A good history of the Ewa Plantation Company is provided in the National Register form for the Ewa Sugar Plantation Villages (Moy 1995) and a historical survey of the plantation up to 1940 was done by Penny Pagliaro (1987). These studies included the village portions of the plantation, and the history of improvements to workers' living conditions. The history below will focus on the mill area improvements. Much of the following Ewa Plantation Company (EPC) history is derived from its publications, including its annual reports. To save space, references to these company reports and publications are abbreviated as EPC.



The primary promoter of a sugar plantation on the Honouliuli plain was Benjamin Franklin Dillingham, president of the Oahu Land & Railway (OR&L) Company. In the late 1880s and 1890s, Dillingham was involved in a 115,750-acre "Land Colonization Scheme," intended to promote agricultural as well as real-estate development, supported by a railroad planned around most of Oahu (Hawaii State Archives 1887). The first part of his railway, from Honolulu to Manana (what became Pearl City), opened in January 1890, and the line was soon extended to Ewa. He "desired the establishment of a plantation whose produce would augment the amount of freight to be carried by his OR&L railroad" (Castle & Cooke, Inc. 1899). Dillingham actually arranged to lease the lands in the Ewa area from James Campbell, and then subleased the portion below the 200-foot elevation to William R. Castle, who organized the capital to start the plantation here (EPC 1923: 6). The first name considered for the enterprise was the Oahu Plantation Company, but the Ewa Plantation Company name was chosen in 1889 (Castle & Cooke, Inc. 1899).

A group of Honolulu businessmen formally organized the plantation company in January 1890. The original subscribers to the stock were J.B. Atherton, G.P. Castle, W.R. Castle, J.B. Castle, C.M. Cooke, W.F. Allen, W.J. Lowrie, W.A. Bowen, J.H. Paty, T.G. Thrum, E.D. Tenney, J.A. Gilman, and W. Wright (Honolulu Advertiser 1940). The original lease with James Campbell was to run until November 1939, but a new lease was later negotiated with the Campbell Estate (EPC 1923: 3).

As noted in the above section, the first decade of the EPC was a turbulent era politically and economically. The plantation also had numerous difficulties with its first mill. The contract to build the mill was awarded to Union Iron Works, a San Francisco-based company. The choice of this company, over the Honolulu Iron Works, may have been because the latter had an affiliation with Theo H. Davies, "whose British ties made it perhaps less appealing to the pro-American Ewa Plantation Company directors"(Pagliaro 1987: 9). However, Union Iron Works failed in 1892. The mill machinery was not completed and it had defects (EPC 1893: 8). The mill was finished in time for the first crop to be processed there, but only with great difficulty and expense. The first mill building had diffusion process machinery installed, rather than the more typical crushing process. The original mill "required that the cane be sliced before extraction" (EPC 1940: 7). In 1895, the treasurer's report noted that the plantation had installed in the factory equipment "then new to Hawaii" (EPC 1940: 9). The equipment purchased and the reason for the change were discussed:

new 9-roller mill, nine mud presses, and 22 new precipitators, together with the necessary pumps and pipe connections. A complete new coil was also put into the larger vacuum pan, the old one having proved defective. Savealls, of an improved design, have also been added to the vacuum pans and evaporators.

These changes, while involving the outlay of large sums of money, have proved a good investment, as the saving in cost of manufacture alone, as compared with our last diffusion season will pay for fully one-half their cost (EPC 1895: 2).

W. J. Lowrie, the first EPC manager, from 1890 until 1898, was a strong advocate for the new equipment and for the more tried-and-true milling system. In 1898, in his last annual report before resignation, he noted that a new pump and boilers had been installed at the mill that



year, and recommended increasing the evaporating capacity of the mill and installing some shredding equipment at the front end of the mill.

There is no known physical evidence in the mill area from the period of Lowrie's tenure as manager. However, he guided the plantation through its first eight rocky years, from a new business to a prominent one in the industry. In 1900, at the end of its first decade, Ewa plantation was producing almost one tenth of the Territory's annual sugar output, although it was just one among forty plantations in Hawaii (EPC 1901: 8).

The second manager of the Ewa Plantation Company was George Renton, who served from 1898 until 1920. He had twenty years of previous experience in the sugar industry, including five years as manager of Kohala Sugar Company (Pagliaro 1987: 16). He immediately started planning improvements. In his first report, he notes the mill was to be remodeled to double its present capacity (EPC 1899: 16). In 1901, the plantation was well on its way to making these improvements to the mill. Renton noted:

All of the mill extension material, save in the matter of piping and a few minor auxiliaries is here and, during the next ten months, the appearance of the factory and grounds will be entirely altered. The inconvenience and extra expense attendant upon the erection of a new steel structure over an old building of wooden framework, and the installation of new machinery together with re-arrangement of the old, while, at the same time, harvesting the large coming crop of 1901, will be considerable (EPC 1901: 6).

In early 1902, Renton notes the "new" mill was nearly completed. Only some machinery needed to be installed, and the old rolls in the original nine-roller mill replaced. This was required due to the large crops of the previous two years that necessitated continuous grinding for two years, without an off-season for overhauling the machinery (EPC 1902: 2-4).

Ewa Plantation was proclaimed "The Most Productive Sugar Plantation in the World" in 1902 (Paradise of the Pacific 1902). This was due to its average production of over ten tons of sugar per acre compared to an average of less than four tons in the Hawaiian islands and 2 Ya tons in Cuba. Although the new mill was completed in 1902, improvements to the mill continued for the next several years. 1903 saw the installation of three "Hersey Dryers," which was an added stage between the centrifugals and the bagging equipment. These dryers were "expected to repay their cost very rapidly through the removal of danger from deterioration of sugar in transit to Atlantic ports" (EPC 1903: 8). In 1904 and 1905, new multitubular boilers replaced the original ones, built by Union Iron Works. An experimental crystallizer was installed in 1904; the manager had noted in the 1903 annual report that Ewa was "one of the few modem mills which have not yet installed crystallizers" (EPC 1904: 11). As with every decision at this and other plantations, the profitability of the machinery had to be proven before committing to large expenditures. Often the machinery costs were offset by lower labor costs, as in the case of new unloading machines at the cane carrier in 1905. Sometimes existing machinery was tinkered with to increase efficiencies. In 1905, the manager reported the "trash carrier has been raised and its position shifted with the end in view of eventually altering the furnace-feeding device" (EPC 1906: 3). The annual report for 1906 notes that the "expenses for permanent improvements in the Sugar House were trifling" (EPC 1907: 4). However, later improvements to the mill were made in 1913, when 26 modem crystallizers were installed, and in 1917, with a new pre-evaporator and eight more centrifugals (EPC 1940: 21).



By 1920, four of the older boilers in the mill required replacement, and these were the last mill improvements done under manager George Renton. There are no buildings remaining in the mill area from his period of tenure. In his last annual report, he summarized his 22 years of management.

There stands out in my memory three principal things; first, the alteration and building of the new steel mill about 1900; second, the leaf hopper attack subsequent to this, which bid fair to destroy the cane entirely until gotten under control by the entomologists of the Experiment Station; and finally, the so-called "Lahaina disease", which was so bad that Lahaina [variety of cane], once the standby of Ewa, had to be discarded, and its place taken by H-109. The rest of the plantation worries were those incidental to the general growth and management of the plantation and did not bulk largely, in my mind, but these three, especially the last two mentioned, were somewhat wearing (EPC 1921: 6).

George Renton did not mention in this summary the 1919-1920 labor strike by Japanese workers at Ewa Plantation Company. This strike was part of a larger movement of labor unrest in Hawaii's plantations. About 12,000 Filipino and Japanese sugar workers, in a landmark coalition (all previous strikes had been by one ethnic group), went on strike in 1920 at six Oahu plantations (Center for Labor Education and Research 2002). The coalition broke down and the strike was lost, but it resulted in a great labor shortage at Hawaii's plantations.

Starting in the aftermath of the strike was the new manager, George Renton, Jr., son of the previous manager. He had lived at Ewa since age 12, and served as manager almost as long as his father, from 1921until1937. He had started working for EPC in 1909, after graduation from Yale University, so his overall term of employment was longer than his father's was. Labor issues and improved conditions for workers were major concerns of his tenure. In his first year he oversaw construction of a large number of new family dwellings in all the villages, costing over $100,000. He did have to make mill improvements during his first year as manager, since in 1920 there had only been a short off-season of I Ya months and none at all during 1921 due to the strike and continuing labor shortage. In 1921, two additional boilers were installed at the mill, along with a new ice plant. These mill expenditures amounted to $46,000. In February 1922, the mill had to shut down for a week, due to a broken crusher cheek, and one mill train (one of the two nine-rollers mills) was not in operation for two months, to allow repairs to its concrete foundations (EPC 1922: 6). In 1922, there was an off-season of four months when the factory was "thoroughly overhauled and repaired - the first time in four years" (EPC 1923: 6). The major mill improvement in 1923 was painting the interior white, to protect the metal and to brighten the interior. As always, such expenditures, which might be viewed as unnecessary by the EPC board, had to be justified by the manager. He noted:

This makes it not only more pleasant for the men working there, but also lightens up the whole interior of the building, which undoubtedly will help in reducing to a minimum the possibility of serious accidents (EPC 1925: 5).

The fields' production numbers and the mill's output continued to expand under George Renton, Jr., due to both his scientific bent in terms of the agricultural and technological issues and his social skills in dealing with his labor concerns. His annual reports show that


HABS No. Bl-384 (Page 10)

he often spent twice the amount per year on improvements in workers' villages compared to expenses for the mill and industrial buildings. This was the case in 1925; however, mill costs were higher in 1926, due to expensive generators, an extension to the power house, and replacement of cracked cast-iron mill housings with steel ones (EPC 1927: 8).

In the late 1920s and early 1930s expenses for permanent improvements were kept to a minimum, since renegotiation of the EPC lease with the Campbell Estate was being conducted. In 1931 that lease was extended until the end of 1978, or until the termination of the James Campbell Trust (EPC 1932: 3). The following years, 1932 and 1933, some new replacement equipment was installed in the mill. Because of extremely low sugar prices, all employees had reductions in their compensation in 1932 (EPC 1933: 7). No labor strife was reported due to this. Since the depression contributed to high unemployment levels, workers were apparently content to have jobs. Ewa Plantation was a pioneer in the mechanization of field work, starting with the mechanical loading of cane. In 1935, the engineers on the plantation developed a grab device that "loaded 40 to SO tons of handpiled cane per hour" (Honolulu Advertiser 1940). "In 1937 the whole industry was revolutionized with the discovery that improved grabs could be used to harvest cane without cutting" (EPC 1940: 25).

In 1934, Congress passed the Jones-Costigan Amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which resulted in curtailment of the amount of sugar that would normally be produced at the Ewa Plantation (EPC 1935: 3). This lower quota also was maintained in 1935 and influenced planting decisions for future crops, so that effects were felt into 1938 (EPC 1939: 8). Despite the impact of this amendment on the plantation's bottom line, a new turbogenerator was installed in the mill in 1934. In 1935 improvements focused on process changes that would reduce steam used in the boiler house and, thus, also reduce purchased electricity costs; only minor replacement equipment purchases were made (EPC 1936: 4). In 1936, with the quotas raised, several replacements to mill equipment and machinery were mentioned, a complete remodeling of the electrical control equipment, as well as "reconditioning and painting of the factory and shop buildings"(EPC 1937: 5). Construction of 82 new houses for workers also commenced in 1936. This was the last full year under the management of George Renton, Jr., who resigned in March 1937 due to health reasons. The President of EPC noted that the "best interests of the employees and their families were always a matter of primary concern to Mr. Renton, a noteworthy example being the Ewa Health Center" (EPC 1938: 5).

The Health Center and the Tenney Recreation Center were two major complexes built when George Renton, Jr. was manager. These were both important projects for him, but are now gone. The greatest physical reminders of the period of George Renton, Jr. 's management of the plantation are the majority of houses in Renton, Tenney and Varona Villages, plus the EPC administration building and store. In the mill area the sugar warehouse (Facility No. 17, HABS No. HI-384-A) and the shop building (Facility No. 21, HABS No. HI-384-B) were the only ones built under his tenure to survive into the first years of the 21st century.

The next manager was J.D. Bond, who was a cousin to George Renton, Jr. and a grandson of the North Kohala missionary, Reverend Elias Bond. His tenure as manager of EPC ran from 1937 until 1945. It was during his early years that the Industrial Center at Ewa was planned and constructed. Eight remaining buildings of the Industrial Center are the main physical evidence of Bond's management. Four of these are being retained, Facilities 22, 26, 27, and

EWA PLANTATION COMPANY INDUSTRIAL CENTER . (Ewa Sugar Mill)


28. For the others, see the reports on Facilities 24, 25A, 26, 28A (HABS No. HI-384-F, HI-384-E, HI-384-D, and HI-384-C, respectively).

Bond's first annual report talked of factory changes that resulted from the switch to mechanical harvesting methods. This method eliminated even the hand-cutting and handpiling of the cane and involved a device that broke the cane at its base (Honolulu Advertiser 1940). Adjustments in the mill were required since it was "particularly difficult to prepare and clean mechanically harvested cane for milling" (EPC 1940: 28). Most of Bond's first report emphasized industrial relations with workers. This included "improving working conditions," safety improvements, health studies (on children's diets, tooth decay, and a tuberculosis survey), and building more housing for the younger workers, who "are marrying and requiring homes for their families" (EPC 1938: 9 & 11). Bond's second annual report explained that the mechanical harvesting method had been developed at Ewa Plantation and used "for the first time in the history of the local sugar industry" for practically the entire crop (EPC 1939: 5). He also noted that that the decision to switch methods was the need to cut costs due to the anticipated continuing low price of sugar. The 1938 annual report also included a diagram of the planned Industrial Center (see drawing near end of this report), which showed four buildings constructed (Facilities 27, 27A, 28, and 28A, see HABS No. HI-384-C for a report on the last one), one under construction (Facility 25), and seven other proposed structures. Bond talked of two that had been completed or were nearly complete, but he may have been thinking of all of them when he wrote "these facilities have been badly needed and will enable our work to be carried on considerably more efficiently" (EPC 1939: 10). The Industrial Center, built incrementally over the 1940s, and ending with the 1956 Bagasse Storage Warehouse, was only slightly different from Bond's 1938 plan.

Bond's plans for more housing for workers included a 500-house area to be called Sisal Village. The layout had recreation facilities in the middle of a circular road, and an outer curvilinear road with side roads leading into small clusters of houses. The first 14 houses were started in 1938, but construction was abandoned. In the treasurer's report for 1938, he explained the need for housing was acknowledged, but $250,000 had been spent on 143 new houses in the past few years. He explained that "the outlook for the industry for the immediate future is so uncertain as to make it advisable to postpone indefinitely all such new additions (EPC 1939: 25).

The fiftieth anniversary of EPC was celebrated in 1940. The celebrations included a parade with floats that included models of the original and current mill building. In the mill an important addition was made that year, with a five-tray continuous clarifier replacing the old settling tanks. The manager noted that the main advantage was that the new equipment "increases our settling capacity enough so that we can continue grinding at appreciably higher rates during periods of unfavorable weather than previously possible (EPC 1941: 5). Other factory improvements were also made that year. Two buildings were added to the Industrial Center, a storage shelter for plantation vehicles (demolished ca. 1993) and the iron and steel supply shed (Facility No. 25A, see HABS No. HI-384-E).

In the late 1930s and especially in 1940 and 1941, Ewa Plantation, like many on Oahu and around the Territory, lost workers to defense build-up projects, where pay was often higher. Since two new air stations, Marine Corps Air Station Ewa and Naval Air Station Barbers Point, were built on property adjoining EPC, and Pearl Harbor Naval Base was expanding around

EW.A PLA.NT.ATION COMP.ANY INDUSTRIAL CENTER (Ewa Sugar Mill)

H.ABS No. Hl-384 (Page 12)

West Loch, no doubt many workers left for jobs at these locations. One building, the garage and service station (Facility No. 24, see HABS No. HI-384-F), was finished in 1941, probably before the war started. The manager lamented, after the December 7, 1941 attack, that "so much of our labor and equipment was requisitioned by the military that to all intents and purposes sugar production may be said to have stopped then and there' (EPC 1942).

Japanese planes strafed the Ewa Plantation during the December 7 attack, probably because of its proximity to nearby military targets. There were nine casualties, two serious, one resulting in amputation of a woman's arm and the other in the death in February 1942 of a young girl (EPC 1942: 1). In the aftermath of the attack, "Army units moving into our area took whatever material was available at hand for the construction of their headquarters and other posts" (EPC 1942: 2). Community air raid shelters were built by the plantation and individual homes had their own "scare pukas," (hiding holes) typically built out of old flume iron and second-hand materials (EPC 1942: 6). The power plant at the mill was cold and the boilers under repair on December 7, 1941, but by the next day it was operating on 24-hour standby duty, to contribute electricity to the island-wide grid. Work on a 300,000 gallon concrete fuel oil tank was started at the direction of the Corps of Engineers (EPC 1942: 13).

The 1942 annual report outlines the difficulties encountered in maintaining sugar production, considered an essential commodity, during wartime. The factory, which ran 24 hours a day during most of the year, had to be blacked out, as did any other industrial buildings used at night. Curfew restrictions, supplying workers to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and cane land and buildings at EPC taken for use by the armed forces were some of the problems the plantation faced that year and following war years. "One of the major projects assigned to [EPC] by the Army was the construction of an 8 Ya -mile road in hazardous terrain with the use of our own men and equipment" (EPC 1943). About 20 percent of the EPC work force was contributed to Army projects between December 1941 and September 1942 (EPC 1942: 19). Shortages of labor continued at EPC and other plantations throughout the war years. At least forty people from Ewa Plantation served in the armed forces and at least five died in battles in Italy (EPC 1946: 13 and 1945).

In 1945, before the war ended, four major factory improvements were underway, new centrifugals, an additional boiler, a new evaporator cell, and a new Oliver filter (EPC 1946: 8). These were the last improvements done under manager J.D. Bond. No explanation of his departure was found in following annual reports.

The manager appointed in 1946 was James N. Orrick. He served until his death in 1962. When he was manager, the plantation was still working on perfecting the cane cleaning equipment at the start of the milling process, that the introduction of mechanical harvesting in 1938 had made necessary. He also oversaw the transition from rail transport of cane to trucking. Two facilities from his period of management survived until the beginning of the twenty-first century, the storehouse on the west side of the Industrial Center (Facility No. 29, see HABS No. HI-384-G) and the bagasse storage warehouse on the east side (Facility No. 7/8, see HABS No. HI-384-H).

In 1962, Castle & Cooke, Inc., originally agents for the plantation, purchased majority control of Ewa Plantation Company stock (Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association n.d.). In 1963 a new, fully automatic, five-celled evaporator station replaced the older equipment in the mill. Full ownership of the Ewa plantation by Castle & Cooke, Inc. occurred in 1968. The


HABS No. HI-384 (Page 13)

plantation's name changed to Ewa Sugar Co., Inc. (Schneider 1968). E.C. Bryan was manager from 1962 until the early 1970s, when the Ewa plantation was acquired by Oahu Sugar Company (OSCO), which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Arnfac, Inc. The OSCO plantation had sugar cane fields on abutting lands in central Oahu. OSCO leased EPC's former lands from Campbell Estate until the mid 1990s, but it had little use for the mill and other industrial buildings at Ewa, since its operations were concentrated around its mill in Waipahu. Sugar processing operations at the Ewa mill ceased in 1976. The main Ewa mill building was demolished in stages between 1981 and 1985 (Brewer Environmental Services 1994: 8).

Sugar Milling Process

Two publications by the Ewa Plantation Company give outlines of the sugar milling process. The 1923 booklet describes all the plantation activities, including milling, with brief captions under photographs, while the 1957 tour-oriented brochure focuses on the sugar milling process, using drawings. Some letters from the EPC manager to the president of the company also provide some insights into the milling process and decisions that had to be made by management. Other publications were also helpful in gaining an understanding of the complex sugar milling process. One article compared milling of sugar beets to sugar cane:

This juice from cane is much richer in sugar and less contaminated with nonsaccharine solids than that yielded by beet, and its pleasant taste and aromatic odor contrast markedly with the acrid taste and unpleasant smell of beet juice (Paradise of the Pacific 1902: 21).

An interesting point of view was stressed in one letter from manager George Renton to president E.D. Tenney. He believed that the decisions about cultivation, such as which variety to plant and how much to fertilize and irrigate, had much more impact on the bottom line than any savings that could be made in the milling process.

The mills of this country are just so much machinery anyhow, and, while I do not decry any saving whatever in that line, there is so much more to be saved or made in cultivating the right varieties, or in improvements in cultivation that a slight saving in the mill seems to me very small in view of the larger things that affect plantations (Renton 1920).

However, the mill was the central industrial heart of the plantation and large capital expenditures were made in the building and the machinery. These were not changed as often as the decisions about varieties of cane and how to cultivate them. As discussed above in the company history, the EPC had started out with a diffusion type of mill, but switched to the more conventional type about 1894. The sugar milling process had changed greatly from the earliest mills in the mid-nineteenth century. An early-type of small sugar mill is described in a Historic American Engineering Record report on the R.W. Meyer sugar mill on Molokai (Bluestone 1978). Improvements in the sugar milling process during first half of the twentieth century were almost as dramatic, and can be seen by comparing the two EPC publications. The differences between the 1923 steps and those described in the 1957 tour handout are highlighted below. Since the 1957 brochure has no printed page numbers, the pages noted in the references are counted from the Station No. 1 page.



The manufacture of sugar usually involved a continuous grinding season of about nine months. In the 1923 EPC booklet, this was said to commence in December and end in August or September of the following year. In 1967, the season had shifted from a January start to a September finish. The mill or factory operated 24 hours a day, six days a week, at least in 1923. In 1923, 176 men worked in the factory (EPC 1923: 78). The mill in 1923 produced between 160 and 226 tons ofraw sugar a day. In 1967, this daily figure rose to 400 tons (EPC 1967: 22).

The cane was unloaded at the mill in 1923 from rail cars, and in 1957 from trucks at a cane storage yard near the mill. The first step of the milling process was simple in 1923. The cane cars were "emptied by a mechanical unloader, representing a series of rakes moving on an endless chain. A steel slat conveyor carries the cane through two sets of electrically driven revolving knives which prepares same for the crusher" (EPC 1923: 80). By 1967 there were several more steps before the cane reached the crusher. A large reason for these extra steps was the conversion, about 1938 to mechanical harvesting, instead of hand cutting the cane. The machine grab method saved labor but resulted in more leaves and mud on the cane, in wet weather harvesting. It took about a decade to work out all the kinks in the extra cane cleaning stage. An unscrambling conveyor untangled bundles of cane and separated out the large rocks, by reversal of the conveyor. Separate dirt and rock conveyors ran under the unscrambling conveyor. Another additional step was to dump the cane into a mud bath. This container of mud had a specific density, such that cane would float on it, while small rocks and other heavy debris would sink. From the mud bath, the cane was run through a cascade-washing conveyor, which used approximately 5,000 gallons of water a minute. The cane was then run over combing rolls that broke up the cane "stools" and extract trash, such as cane leaves. Cane knives then chopped up the stools before conveying to the crushing plant (EPC 1957: 2-5).

The juice or sap of the cane is extracted in the rollers of the crushing plant. Originally, the rollers were set up as two separate nine-roller mills, but in 1908 "the crushing apparatus of the mill had been altered so that the milling plant could operate either as two 9-roller mills or as one IS-roller mill" (EPC 1940: 19). In 1911 the crushing plant was modified to run as an 18-roller mill, and it remained in that configuration until the 1940s. The equipment was replaced several times over the history of the mill, but the principle remained the same. In the many separate crushings most of the liquid is extracted. The extraction percentage increased over the years, to the point of obtaining over 98% of the juice by 1923. The fiber left over from this step is called bagasse, and it is reused as fuel in the fire room for the factory. In 1967, the crusher machinery is described as two rolls in the primary mill or crusher, and three rolls in each of the following six mills. Improvements, or additional steps, mentioned in the 1957 brochure included adding water between some of the mills to mix with the sap left in the cane and aid in extracting more juice. Hot water was put on the cane after it came out of the fifth mill. This not only helped extract sugar from the cane, but also from the milling train (EPC 1957: 7).

After the juice was extracted, it was weighed and a little "milk of lime" (made from the rock, not the fruit) is added to correct to a neutral pH level. The juice is then heated to its boiling point and pumped to clarifying or settling tanks. The lime and the heat purify the juice and the dirt and other impurities settle to the bottom, or float as scum on the top, of these tanks. The clear, amber-colored juice is drawn off and sent on to the evaporators. The sediment and scum portions are sent to the filter press station, to recover more juice from this



material. The left-over mud residue is sent back to the fields as fertilizer. These steps did not change between 1923 and 1957 (EPC 1923: 84-87 and EPC 1957: 11 & 12).

The clarified juice is sent to a series of evaporators to be concentrated into syrup. "Inside of each evaporator are 400 copper tubes of an inch and a half diameter, through which the steam passes" (Paradise of the Pacific 1902: 22). The 1923 booklet noted that 80% of the water was evaporated in four separate cells (EPC 1923: 88). The 1957 brochure noted five cells were used by that date and calculated the evaporation differently, noting that the juice was 86% water at the start of this step and 35% at the end (EPC 1957: 15& 16).

To get crystalline sugar, the concentrated syrup is boiled in tanks called "vacuum pans". The process was the same in 1923 and 1957, except time was reduced from the "6 to 8 hours" in 1923 (EPC 1923: 90), to only three hours in 1957.

The vacuum is necessary in order to make the heavy liquid boil at a low temperature that will not burn the sugar.

Very fine grain sugar is placed in the pan as 'seed' and syrup is added. As this mixture boils, eliminating water, the sugar in the syrup combines with the fine grain seed causing the crystals to grow larger. Syrup is added continuously until the pan is filled with a heavy mixture of molasses and large sugar crystals. This mixture is called massecuite (EPC 1957: 17).

Centrifugals are the machines used to separate the sugar crystals from the molasses. "They consist of an outer-casing in which is suspended cylindrical perforated baskets which revolve at a high rate of speed" (EPC 1923: 91). The molasses goes through the holes to the outer container and the raw sugar is retained in the baskets. "The centrifugal, at least as a sugar-drying device, was a Hawaiian invention, the work of D. M. Weston of the Honolulu Iron Works" about 1860 (Lydgate 1917: 75).

Because the molasses from the centrifugals still contains sugar, it is reboiled in the vacuum pans. This lower-grade massecuite is gradually cooled, and slowly agitated, in crystallizers. This process took 7 to 14 days in 1923 (EPC 1923: 92), but only "several days" in 1953 (EPC 1953: 18). The 1929 annual report explains one of the gradual improvements made over the years that contributed to this time savings.

The installation of the cold water circulating pipes made in the crystallizer in 1926 and 1927 has increased the capacity of this station 100 per cent. Formerly it required eight days in the crystallizers before the product could be dried in the centrifugals, during which there was considerable foaming. It was also necessary to pump the contents of about four hundred crystallizers each year to the tank house. During the past two years, or since the installation of the cooling coils, three to four days in the crystallizers are sufficient, there is no foaming, and no pumping to the tank house has been necessary (EPC 1930: 5).

More sugar crystallizes in this step, which is then separated out in centrifugals. This lowergrade sugar is melted in hot water and mixed with the syrup from the clarifiers to go through the vacuum pans and other steps to make a high-grade sugar. This did not change between 1923 and 1957. The 1957 brochure noted that the remaining molasses was sold to businesses making cattle feed or alcohol (EPC 1957: 19).



Some insight into the difficulty of juggling all the above steps of the sugar milling process can be gleaned from a manager's letter in 1914. He summarized the problems that the plantation had been having with the Lahaina variety of cane and the problems that were caused at the mill by the switch to other varieties.

The boiling house was at once inadequately equipped for low grade sugars. It wasn't so much the high purity of the molasses from these other canes as the quantity of it. We could not let it stand long enough in the cooler cars (Renton 1914: 4).

As a solution, he arranged, in 1913, for the installation of a new large group of crystallizers, replacing the cooler cars. The large storage space for massecuite that this provided allowed more time for the sugars to grain out. Apparently, the reduced time in the crystallizers (noted as only "several days" in the 1957 brochure) accounts for the disappearance by 1960 of the addition to the mill (shown on the 1919 Sanborn map) for molasses and massecuite tanks.

The last step in the manufacturing done at the Ewa sugar mill was to weigh and transport the raw sugar to Honolulu. From there, it was shipped to California for refining into white table sugar and other sugar products. From the beginning of the plantation up to 1954, the raw sugar was sent from the centrifugals through weighing and bagging machinery. Each bag weighed 130 pounds (EPC 1923: 93). Several historic photos of the bagging room at the Ewa mill are kept at the Bishop Museum Archives. They show the fabric bags labeled "EWA A Hawaiian Is." or with the same words but A 1 on the bags, probably indicating grade of the raw sugar. The change to bulk storage and transport of raw sugar was made by all the plantations on Oahu in 1954 (EPC 1955: 9). Wooden kegs had been used to transport sugar at other plantations, earlier in the nineteenth century. One man in the business lamented in 1917:

For every purpose, except perhaps refining, this keg package was very much superior to our modern bag package. It was cleaner, more secure against waste and wet, against rats and pilfering hands, and against all wear and tear of transportation. The one thing against the keg was its cost; that and perhaps its inconvenience in transportation (Lydgate 1917: 76).

Lydgate noted the kegs held approximately 125 pounds of sugar, about the same as a bag, but the kegs were harder to handle and more expensive. Since sugar plantations' decisions were almost entirely based on bottom-line considerations, the losses from transport and rats, etc., must have been less than the cost of kegs.

The period when the mill was not manufacturing sugar (ideally three months) was used to maintain the equipment. One of the main off-season jobs was diagonal grooving of the mill rolls used in crushing the cane (EPC 1957: 6). Maintenance of boilers and other equipment was also done. Much of this work was accomplished in the Industrial Center shop buildings. However, these buildings also supported other plantation activities besides the mill.

Relationship of Industrial Center to Mill and to Other Plantation .Activities

An early mention of the supporting industrial buildings near the mill noted that in 1903 the blacksmith, carpenter and car-repair shops had "been moved to a far more convenient


BABS No. BI-384 (Page 17)

locality, enlarged to a size commensurate with the work required to be performed in them, and both interior and exterior arrangements made in the interest of economy" (EPC 1904: 12). In 1923, the Superintendent of Construction was described as "in charge of all carpentry and blacksmith work, including the construction and upkeep of buildings, repairing ofrolling stock, such as cars, carts and wagons, etc." (EPC 1923: 24). The Machine Shop Superintendent oversaw all repair jobs in that building, including "jobs for the factory, pumps, locomotives, automobiles, tractors, and upkeep work in and around the mill" (EPC 1923: 97). The plumbing and pipe-fitting department was then considered an auxiliary of the machine shop. At that time, there were also separate positions for those in charge of steam plows and the gas engine equipment (moving and stationery). In 1923, the head blacksmith was responsible for "the shoeing of horses and mules, iron work repairs to the locomotives, rolling stock, railroad tracks, bridges, carts, wagons, etc." (EPC 1923: 102).

The Industrial Center buildings supported all the plantation activities, from planting and irrigation to harvesting and milling. Moreover, all the housing and other buildings were maintained by staff and materials from the Industrial Center. The Ewa Plantation was a largely self-sufficient community for over 100 years, and this was its core area.

SOURCES

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation et al. 1995 Memorandum of Agreement Among the Farmers Horne Administration, the

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the Hawaii State Historic Preservation Office concerning the Ewa Villages Revitalization Project.

Beck, Roger A., and Ralph R. Beck [1975] Collection of photographs with separate authors' note and caption sheets, in

University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library, Hawaii and Pacific Collection, Rare Photographs, Vo. 7, Box 4, HOOOl l, Folder 4.

Bluestone, Daniel 1978 Historic American Engineering Record, R.W. Meyer Sugar Mill (HAER No. HI-I).

In University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library, Hawaii and Pacific Collection.

Brewer Environmental Services 1994 Phase II Environmental Site Assessment, Ewa Villages Project, Ewa, Oahu, Hawaii.

A report prepared for the City and County of Honolulu, Department of Housing and Community Development.

Castle & Cooke, Inc. var. Index cards for Ewa Plantation Company, MS Group 46, Box 2, Index 3.41, at B.P.

Bishop Museum Archives.

var. Materials in Castle & Cooke's storage area include photo albums, plantation publications, and newspaper clippings. Access arranged by Bev Garcia, Senior Vice President.



Center for Labor Education and Research 2002 Timeline of Hawaii Labor History on the web at http://homepages. uhwo.

hawaii.edu/clear/Timeline.htrnl# 1920. Viewed 4/28/02.

City and County of Honolulu, Property Assessment Division 1960 Map of Mill Buildings and Vicinity, Tax Map Key 9-1-17: 4. Drawing No. 1705.

1960 & 61 Commercial and Industrial Appraisal Cards for Tax Map Key 9-1-17: 49.

Ewa Plantation Company (EPC) var. Annual reports of the Ewa Plantation Company (various titles and varying year

ending dates, but typically December 31; so date of publication was usually the year following the year in the title of the report).

1923 The Story of Ewa Plantation Company, Hawaii. Honolulu Star Bulletin, Ltd.: Honolulu.

1940 SO Years of Ewa Plantation Company. Castle & Cooke, Ltd.

1942 Ewa Plantation Company and the War Effort. Typescript (OSC15/34) in HSPA Archives at University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library.

1957 A Record of Your Visit to Ewa Plantation Co. Brochure at University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library, Hawaii and Pacific Collection.

Hamilton, Jeanne 1998 "Incorporating the Plantation into 21st Century Hawaii," CRM: 39-40.

Hawaii State Archives 1887 Land Colonization Scheme, Island of Oahu, Hawaiian Kingdom... Printed by Martin

Billing, Son, and Co.: Birmingham (England). Interior Dept. Box 35, "Railroads & Railways - Dillingham Colonization."

Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association (HSPA) n.d. Ewa Plantation Company History, part of finding aids to HSPA collection at

University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library.

Historic Maps var. In University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library, Map Collection.

Historic Photos var. In collections of Hawaii State Archives and B.P. Bishop Museum.

Honolulu Advertiser 1940 "Ewa Plantation to Mark Fiftieth Year on Monday," Honolulu Advertiser Jan. 28,

1940: I.

Lydgate, J.M. 1917 "Some Plantation Memories," Hawaiian Annual for 1918. Honolulu, pp. 74-82.

Moy, Tonia



1995 Ewa Sugar Plantation Villages, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Prepared by the Architectural Historian at the State Historic Preservation Division.

Pagliaro, Penny 1987 Ewa Plantation: An Historical Survey, 1890 to 1940. Typescript provided with

consent of author.

1988 "Ewa Plantation Revisited," Historic Hawaii, March 1988: 7-17.

Paradise of the Pacific 1902 "The Most Productive Sugar Plantation in the World," Paradise of the Pacific,

December 1902: 19-22.

Renton, George 1914 Letter dated December 14, 1914 from manager to E.D. Tenney, president of Ewa

Plantation Company: In HSPA Archives (EPC v. 31) at University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library.

1920 Letter dated September 15, 1920 from manager to E.D. Tenney, president of Ewa Plantation Company: In HSPA Archives (EPC v. 31) at University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library.

Sanborn Map Company 1919 Sugar Mill and Cannery Map, Territory of Hawaii. Ewa Plantation Company, p. 3.

In University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library, Map Collection.

Schneider, Emil A. 1968 Press Release in University of Hawaii, Hamilton Library, Hawaii and Pacific

Collection, Rare Photographs, Vo. 7, Box 4, HOOO 11, Folder 4.

PROJECT INFORMATION

Eight buildings and two minor structures in the EPC Industrial Center are planned for demolition as part of a commercial center and park development project by the City and County of Honolulu. In 1995, the city acquired the Ewa Villages property, including the Industrial Center, with plans to revitalize the existing housing. The Farmers' Home Administration was planned to be the source of mortgage loans for individual buyers. Due to the federal involvement and the presence of historic resources, Section 106 consultation on the proposed city plans was required. As a result of the consultation, a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was signed by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Farmers' Home Administration and the Hawaii's Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer, with two city departments (the Department of Housing and Community Development and the Department of Parks and Recreation), and with Historic Hawaii Foundation as concurring parties.



The MOA had several stipulations regarding the buildings in the "Old Mill Area," and made a distinction between the "east" and "west" sides of the mill site. The east side (northeast of the dirt road that runs through the Industrial Center) was designated for commercial development. The only building specifically mentioned in the MOA on the east side of the site was called Building 2 (Facility No. 22), which was to be re-used "if the sale of development rights will produce a reasonable revenue" (Advisory Council on Historic Preservation et al. 1995: 2). On the west side (southwest of the dirt road), the MOA stipulated that Buildings 4, 7, 7A, and 8 (Facilities No. 24, 27, 27A, and 28, respectively) were to be incorporated into the district park planned on this portion of the mill area. The MOA specified that Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) documentation was to be prepared prior to demolition of any buildings in the area.

In September 2001, Mason Architects, Inc. was contracted by Environet, Inc. as a subconsultant on this project. There was a need for quick action on the HABS documentation, so that the park project could proceed, and demolition permits for the buildings obtained. Site visits were made by Ann Yoklavich of Mason Architects, Inc. and large-format photographs were taken by David Franzen of Franzen Photography in October 2001. These photographs were submitted to the National Park Service and the State Historic Preservation Division in November 2001, along with a written request to provide authorization for demolition prior to the completion of the written documentation. Consent to submittal of the documentation after demolition was provided in December 2001.

The large format photographs were taken in October 2001 by David Franzen Franzen Photography 939-A Kaipii Street Kailua, Hawaii 96734

The drawings were done by Mike Zagorski, Intern Architect, and the written documentation was prepared in April 2002 and revised in June 2002 by Ann Yoklavich, Architectural Historian Mason Architects, Inc. 119 Merchant Street, Suite 501 Honolulu, HI 96813



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JI.ABS No. HI-384 (Page 25)

Sketch of floor plan of Facility 29A (see HABS No. HI-384-A through·Hl-384-H for sketches of other buildings)

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