ISLAND HISTORY: A history of Kauai’s Kipu Sugar Plantation

In 1866, William Hyde Rice (1846-1924), the son of American Protestant missionaries to Hawaii William Harrison Rice and Mary Sophia Hyde Rice, began leasing land at Kipu from Princess Ruth Keelikolani on which he raised horses and cattle.

Then in 1881, Rice’s leasehold of Kipu became freehold when he and Grove Farm Plantation owner George Norton Wilcox together purchased Kipu, Kipu Kai, and Haiku from Princess Ruth for $27,500, with Rice then taking possession of Kipu and Kipu Kai, while Wilcox acquired Haiku.

Yet, it was not until 1907 that Rice’s son, Charles Rice (1876-1964), began growing sugarcane at Kipu.

His Kipu Sugar Plantation would eventually encompass around 5,000 acres, with 1,000 acres subdivided into 11 sugarcane fields.

Furthermore, Rice contracted Lihue Plantation to grind his plantation’s sugarcane, which was shipped by rail from Kipu to the Lihue mill.

Plantation employees and their families lived in camps named Halfway Bridge, Aakukui, Seki, Rice and Huleia Valley.

The employee roster for 1927 – a year when Kipu Sugar Plantation’s operations were at an apex – listed a total of 211 workers: 46 Japanese, 75 Filipino men, 7 Portuguese, 1 Chinese, 5 Korean, 1 Japanese woman, 23 Filipino women, 6 Hawaiian women, 26 school boys, 7 school girls, 7 skilled employees and 7 supervisors.

Edward Kalikolehua Scharsch was Kipu Sugar Plantation’s longest serving manager from 1924 to 1941, and Charles Ishii was its bookkeeper, secretary and assistant treasurer.

In 1940, when Lihue Plantation cancelled its sugar grinding contract with Kipu Sugar Plantation, effective in 1942, it also sent Kipu Sugar Plantation a new contract specifying terms not acceptable to Rice due to increased cost.

Charles Rice then decided to shut down Kipu Sugar Plantation and convert its sugar lands to pasture.

Planting of sugarcane ceased in 1941 and fields already planted in sugarcane were harvested until April 1942.

Additionally, Kipu Sugar Plantation’s dairy herd and equipment was sold to the Faye family’s Waimea Dairy.

While the last railroad car of sugarcane was on its way from Kipu to the Lihue mill in 1942, Kipu employees were planting grass in former sugarcane fields.

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Hank Soboleski has been a resident of Kauai since the 1960s. Hank’s love of the island and its history has inspired him, in conjunction with The Garden Island Newspaper, to share the island’s history weekly. The collection of these articles can be found here: https://bit.ly/2IfbxL9 and here https://bit.ly/2STw9gi Hank can be reached at hssgms@gmail.com