Qualla: Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum

Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joel Bradshaw, Public domain. The problem was water. In the 1870s, Samuel Thomas Alexander and Henry Perrine Baldwin owned 561 acres of sugarcane fields between Pāia and Makawao on Maui's central plain. Rain fell abundantly on the windward slopes of Haleakalā, miles away through dense rainforest, while their fields baked in semi-arid sunshine. Alexander's solution was audacious: a 17-mile irrigation aqueduct tunneled and carved across the mountain, diverting water from where it was plentiful to where it was profitable. Completed in 1878 at three times its estimated cost, the Hamakua Ditch transformed Maui's dry forests into some of the most productive sugarcane land in the Pacific. Today, the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum in Puʻunēne tells the story of that transformation from the former mill manager's house.

Image: Joel Bradshaw | Public domain

Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum: Missionary Sons, Sugar Kings

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joel Bradshaw, Public domain. Both founders came from missionary families. Alexander's parents had been among the early Protestant missionaries to Hawaiʻi; Baldwin was the son of Dwight Baldwin, the minister and doctor who had served Lahaina through the devastating epidemics of 1848-1849. The two families bec...

Image: Joel Bradshaw | Public domain

Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum: An Aqueduct Across a Volcano

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joel Bradshaw, Public domain. Alexander knew about Hawaiian irrigation systems from his time at Lahainaluna School, but what he proposed was on an entirely different scale. He negotiated a 20-year lease of water rights from King Kalākaua for just $100 per year, and his brother James surveyed the route. Constr...

Image: Joel Bradshaw | Public domain

Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum: From Partnership to Empire

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit joanna orpia from QLD, australia, CC BY 2.0. Success bred expansion. In 1884, Alexander organized Hawaiian planters into the Sugar Factors group, which evolved into the California and Hawaiian Sugar Company — C&H, a brand still recognized on grocery shelves. In 1898, Alexander and Baldwin purchased a controlling interest in...

Image: joanna orpia from QLD, australia | CC BY 2.0

Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum: One of the Big Five

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fives Fletcher, CC BY-SA 3.0. Alexander & Baldwin grew into one of the "Big Five" corporations that dominated Hawaiʻi's territorial economy, controlling sugar production, shipping, land, and eventually tourism. The company purchased the Matson Navigation Company and was added to the Dow Jones Transportation A...

Image: Fives Fletcher | CC BY-SA 3.0