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May 29, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lānai Ranch

Lānai’s formal ranching period ran from approximately 1854 to 1951 – longer than the cultivation of pineapple on the island. The ranch headquarters, situated about one mile away from what is now the city was at a place known as Kō‘ele.

Prior to 1923 and the arrival of James Dole, the Kō‘ele headquarters of the Lānai Ranch was the closest thing to a town in the uplands of Lānai. The only other historic “city” or village was situated on the windward shore of Lānai, at Keomuku – which had originally been built as the center of operations for the Maunalei Sugar Company (1898 to 1901). (Kepa Maly)

Walter Murray Gibson and other followers of the Mormon Church started a settlement on land they had purchased. Shortly thereafter, Gibson was excommunicated for allegedly misusing church funds; the settlement failed and the Mormons left the island.

Gibson remained and consolidated the 26,000 acres of land he controlled to form Lānai Sheep Ranch, headquartered in Palawai. By 1867, Gibson’s ranch consisted of 10,000 sheep and 18,000 goats.

By 1875, despite protests by Lānai; residents, Gibson controlled 90 percent of Lānai; lands either in fee simple or long-term leases, for ranching and farming operations. After Gibson’s death in 1888, the ranch was turned over to his daughter and son-in-law, Talula and Frederick Hayselden.

The ranch, headquartered in Kō‘ele, had grown to number 40,000 sheep, 3,000 Angora goats, 600 horses and 200 head of cattle. Lands making up Lānai Ranch included the former Gibson lands, government-owned land, and some ahupua‘as owned by Honolulu financier WG Irwin.

Despite attempts to increase the ranch’s efficiency and profitability, the Hayseldens lost money. Therefore, in 1898, the Hayseldens established Maunalei Sugar Company.  Plagued by financial problems, Hayselden closed the plantation in 1901.

The Gibson estate went into receivership, with financiers WH Pain and Paul Neuman assuming two-thirds of the debt and the remaining land and assets. Charles and Louisa Gay, of the wealthy Gay and Robinson family of Kauai and Ni‘ihau, purchased the properties held by Pain and Neuman in 1902.

By 1907, Gay owned virtually the entire island.  The Gay family moved to Lānai in late 1902. The family business is primarily ranching, but with a transition from sheep to cattle.

Between 1902 and 1910, the years of his tenure as landowner and manager, Gay brought up plantation homes for ranch hands from Keomuku to Kō‘ele, laid pipelines, dug reservoirs and wells, erected windmills and fences, installed a water-pumping system in Maunalei Gulch, and began experimental farming.

Gay, who lived in the ranch manager’s home in Ko’ele, also maintained a residence near the beach at Keomuku. He used some of the defunct sugar company’s facilities at Keomuku – such as the brackish-water wells, windmills, and the Kahalepalaoa Landing – to maintain some ranch operations manned by a few employees.

Gay also built a school in Palawai for his own children and that of ranch employees, and a church in Keomuku for use by his family and nearby residents.  Although Gay achieved some measure of success after his improvements, he had difficulty turning a profit. He subsequently sold all but 600 acres of his lands in 1910 to a hui of businessmen.

William G Irwin (and his wife), Robert W Shingle and Cecil Brown formed the “Lānai Ranch Company,” which later became the “Lānai Company.”  At the time of this sale, the ranch consisted of 22,500 sheep, 250 head of cattle, and 150 horses.

Gay remained on Lānai and, on his 600 acres, farmed corn, watermelons, pineapples and other crops, raised pigs, and built a home in Lalakoa, an area adjacent to present-day Lānai City. He also continued to use his Keomuku home.

In 1911, Lānai Ranch Company hired New Zealander George Munro as ranch manager. Munro, who previously worked at Molokai Ranch, found that because there had been little subdividing of pastureland, the sheep were roaming the island almost at will and the goats had become wild.

Munro, who had a knowledge of and interest in botany, planted hundreds of Norfolk Island pine trees throughout the island to catch fog drip to increase the ground water supply. Also during this time, Lānai Ranch Company began shifting its emphasis from sheep to cattle in order to supply a growing market for beef.

In 1917, Lānai Ranch Company sold the island to Frank and Harry Baldwin of Maui, who continue the cattle ranching operation under the title of “Lānai Ranch.”

Munro, who was to stay on as ranch manager until 1935, continued the shift from sheep to cattle, and reduced the goat population. With the improved water supply, the emphasis on cattle, and the decimation of goats which destroyed grazing lands, Lānai Ranch began making a profit.

In 1922, despite this relative prosperity, the Baldwins sold the island to James D Dole of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company. This began the large-scale pineapple cultivation on Lānai which was to permanently alter the island’s landscape and social fabric while at the same time signaling the decline of Lānai Ranch as the island’s dominant commercial activity.

James Dole and associates planned and started the construction of Lānai City, Kaumālapa‘u Harbor (to ship pineapples and supplies), the plantation fields, and infrastructure needed for development of the plantation.

​Dole engaged David Root, James Munro, Tokumatsu Murayama, Hawaiian Dredging and others to develop the plantation.  Former pasturelands were cleared and rows upon rows of pineapple were planted.  The first buildings in Lānai City were under construction in 1923.

​During the decade following its purchase, Hawaiian Pine carefully implemented plans to transform Lānai into a pineapple plantation and ultimately made Lānai the world’s largest pineapple plantation.

As pineapple growing and harvesting began in earnest, the first crop was harvested and shipped in 1926 – Munro reduced the cattle herd and turned over ranch acreage to Hawaiian Pineapple Company. By 1927, of Lānai’s 89,600 acres, pineapple operations accounted for 40,000 acres, Lānai Ranch occupied 44,000 acres, and 5,000 acres were taken up by forest reserve.

In 1935, George Munro, Lānai Ranch manager since 1911, retired. He advised that pineapple, not cattle, be given primary consideration on Lānai, and that the ranch be continued only as long as pineapple-growing was not jeopardized.

The ranch continued to decline in the 1940s. By 1950, there were only a few cowboys to herd up the remaining cattle on the island. The ranch officially closed in 1951.

Castle & Cooke, Inc., which in 1961 acquired 100 percent direct ownership of Hawaiian Pineapple Company (in 1985, David H Murdock purchased Castle & Cooke – which includes much of the island of Lānai). In 1987. construction of the two luxury hotels on Lānai started.

In 1992, the final harvest of pineapple on Lānai took place in October. On November 14. 1992, a “Pau Hana” (“end of work”) gathering was held in Dole Park to commemorate the close of the pineapple era on Lānai.

In 2012, Larry Ellison purchased the island of Lānai – approximately 97 percent of the land on island – and engaged in building a sustainable community through the holding company, Pūlama Lānai.  (Lots of information here is from UH Center for Oral History and Lānai Culture & Heritage Center.)

© 2025 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: General, Place Names, Prominent People, Economy Tagged With: Baldwin, Lanai Ranch, Hawaii, Lanai, George Munro, James Dole, Charles Gay

July 7, 2013 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lānaʻi City Walking Tour

Lānaʻi City is the last intact plantation town in the State of Hawai‘i. This unique status is in part a result of its isolation, with Lānaʻi being physically detached from any other town or city in Hawai‘i.

A walk through Lānaʻi City is like a walk back through time.  A walking tour has been established in the City that helps recall the people, places and stories of this community.

The walk around the historical business center of Lānaʻi City and Dole Park is about one-half mile long, and depending on how many stops you make, might take you 15 minutes to an hour or more to complete (37-sites have been identified.)

After methodically buying up individual parcels, by 1907, Charles Gay, youngest son of Captain Thomas Gay and Jane Sinclair Gay, acquired the island of Lānaʻi (except for about 100-acres.)  He was the first to establish the single-ownership model for Lānaʻi (with roughly 89,000 acres.)

Around 1919, Gay experimented with planting pineapple on a small scale.  He eventually sold his interest and James Dole’s Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Ltd. purchased the island and began the subsequent establishment of its pineapple plantation.

The story of Lānaʻi City begins when James Dole purchased nearly the entire island of Lānaʻi in November 1922, as a part of the holdings of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Ltd.  Prior to 1922, the lands on which the city would be built had been grazed as part of the old Lānaʻi Ranch operations.

Plans for building Lānaʻi City were drawn up in early 1923, as Dole and his partners set out to make Lānaʻi the world’s largest pineapple plantation.

Coming from Connecticut, Dole was familiar with the design of the “town square” and grid system of laying out streets in such a way that everything was connected to the “green” or park in the middle of town.

Under Dole’s tenure, the Lānaʻi plantation and city grew, and at one time the island supported nearly 20,000-acres of cultivated pineapple, making it the world’s largest plantation. For seventy years, from 1922 to 1992 (when the last harvest took place,) the name “Lānaʻi” was synonymous with pineapple.

With the advent of the plantation and establishment of Lānaʻi City, the new Lānaʻi Post Office building (still called Keomoku Post Office at the time, for its original location on the shore), which also served as home to the plantation manager’s office, was opened by November 1924.

That original manager and post office building is now the site of the present day Dole Administration Building (fronted by the flagpole). Immediately below was the park, or town square, around which was laid out all of the stores and shops, the bank, theater, Dole’s “clubhouse”, the Buddhist Church and a children’s playground.

As you begin your walking tour of Lānaʻi City enjoy the following overview of the early history published in a Maui News article in 1926—written at the time that Lānaʻi City and the plantation operations were “debuted” to the world. The article shares with readers, the vision, hard work and investment that went into making Lānaʻi City a vibrant community that has nurtured some five generations of residents:

“…There is more, much more on the fertile island of Lanai than broad fields for a yield of Hawaii’s premier fruit and a machine for getting that fruit from the fields and started toward the great cannery in Honolulu. There is the foundation for a considerable group of productive workers given facilities for production as nearly perfect as business skill and foresight can provide. And with it they are given the things which transform a group of human individuals into a real community.”

“Before this investment of approximately $3,000,000 began to return a penny, the Hawaiian Pineapple Company provided its workers not only with accommodations for living, but with accommodations for enjoyment and recreation to a notable degree.”

“Schools, churches, a model playground, a fine baseball field, a swimming pool, tennis courts, an ample and well equipped auditorium, and moving picture theater are as much a part of Lanai City as the fine roads, and well appointed office, or the model machine shop; as much a part of the whole enterprise as the harbor that has been hewn out of the cliff walled beach…“  (Maui News – December 24, 1926)

Here is a list of key locations identified in the Walking Tour:
1. Old Dole Administration Building and the Lānaʻi Culture & Heritage Center
2. First Hawaiian Bank
3. The Lānaʻi Theater, Playhouse & Fitness Center
4. Mike Carroll’s Gallery
5. Island of Lānaʻi Properties & Lānaʻi Visitor’s Bureau
6. Canoes Lānaʻi Restaurant
7. Blue Ginger Restaurant
8. Coffee Works
9. Gifts with Aloha from Lānaʻi & The Local Gentry
10. Launderette Lānaʻi
11. Lānaʻi Art Center
12. Maui Community College / Lānaʻi Education Center
13. Lānaʻi Senior Center
14. Lānaʻi High & Elementary School
15. Lānaʻi Gym
16. Union Church
17. Sacred Hearts Church
18. Old Police Station, Court House & Jail
19. The Sweetest Days Ice Cream Shoppe
20. Pele’s Other Garden Restaurant
21. Sergio’s Filipino Store, Ganotisi’s Variety Store, and Nita’s in Style Beauty Salon
22. Pine Isle Market, Ltd.
23. International Store
24. Cafe 565
25. Lānaʻi Community Center & Dole Park
26. Dis-n-Dat
27. Richard’s Market
28. Bank of Hawaii
29. Lānaʻi Community Hospital
30. Hotel Lānaʻi
31. Lānaʻi Plantation Labor Yard/Machine Shop
32. Lānaʻi City Service & Lānaʻi Hardware
33. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Jordanne Fine Art Studio & Lānaʻi Beach Walk
34. Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses
35. Department of Land & Natural Resources
36. Assembly of God Church
37. Lānaʻi Baptist Church

Click here for a link to the various sites plotted in Google Maps (this is part of the prototype for a web-based map that will have all of the various posts noted in the location where they occurred.)

(Click on the numbered icons for images of the respective sites – the square icons show some historic photos.)

The image shows Lanai City in 1924.  Much of the information here is from ‘A Historical Guide to Lānaʻi City (Prepared for the Lānaʻi Culture & Heritage Center.)  The Walking Tour map and images of each site are noted in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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© 2013 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Economy, General, Place Names Tagged With: Charles Gay, Hawaii, Lanai, Lanai Culture and Heritage Center, Hawaiian Pineapple Company, James Dole, Dole

Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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