Creaking. Moaning. Whispering. Ghosts in the machine.
Born in 1898, she outlasted them all. After 120 years of operations this cathedral of man and machine ground to a halt.
Hawaii’s rugged West became the home to sugar entrepreneurs when the signing of a treaty in 1876 between the Kingdom of Hawai’i and the U.S. opened a market for the sweet stuff. The sugar rush had began, and quickly expanded across Hawaii.
It it all ended here.
Cathedrals to industry bygone.
This massive mill was the more modern of Hawaii’s sugar mills, and maybe that accounts for more modern environmental costs. As you enter, rays of light leaks through cracks in steel allowing tress to sprout. As it deepens, it becomes dark and the bowels of the place have a stench of old grease on metal and abandoned toxic slop. We create and abandon cathedrals of industry, in the most unlikely places.
Inside this place a labyrinth of twisted steel, oil and gears that creak and groan from the weight of standing for more than one hundred years. This machine, driven by the hard work and resourcefulness of man, provided the surrounding area with its economic muscle, now gone. The town’s landmark, a towering smokestack still lingers as a reminder, a harbinger, and beacon that anchors to the past.
