Yoshiura Storefront, Hanapepe, 1976

Here are a few more street scenes from Hanapepe in 1976. Of all the island's towns, Hanapepe, "Kauai's Biggest Little Town", best represented the social and architectural feeling of the Island's historic plantation era. Back then, its main street was full of colorful and unique Mom 'n Pop stores like Yoshiura Store, which sold a wide varety of groceries and dry goods.

Up until the 1970s, Kaua‘i’s plantations were company towns—remote, self-contained, culturally diverse communities that provided for most of the needs of the plantation and its employees. The plantation doctor delivered keiki in the plantation infirmary. Each family lived in a plantation home with fruit trees, a garden and a garage. There was a primary school, a gym, playgrounds, ballfields, organized sports and a movie theater. The general store stocked essentials and everyone had a tab. Each ethnic community built its own churches or temples, with language classes, social halls, music and dancing.

In the ’60s, Hawai‘i’s sugar industry, once the most profitable in the world, initiated a fast but short-lived bonanza, selling agricultural technology and knowledge to third-world countries, where cheap land, labor and operating costs would soon put Hawai‘i’s plantations out of business. In 1971, Kilauea Sugar Company milled its last crop of cane. Kauai began losing population as mechanization, layoffs and unemployment forced people to leave in search of jobs while the major landowners pivoted from selling harvests from the land to selling the land.

I made this photo while documenting historic buildings and sites for Kauai Historical Society's book, "The Kauai Album" in 1976. The more time goes by, the more I treasure these snapshots of a brief, beautiful and bygone time in our island's long history.