Spreckelsville, Hawaii facts for kids
Spreckelsville is a small community on the northeast coast of Maui, an island in Hawaii. It's not officially a city or town, but a group of homes and businesses.
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Where is Spreckelsville?
Spreckelsville is located west of Paia and east of Kahului Airport. It's also home to the Maui Country Club. In 2010, about 461 people lived here.
Weather in Spreckelsville
Spreckelsville gets about 22.6 inches (574 mm) of rain each year. The rainiest month is usually January, with about 4 inches (101.6 mm) of rain. June is the driest month, getting only about 0.4 inches (10.2 mm). On average, it rains about 112 days a year. March has the most rainy days, around 13, while June has the fewest, about 6.
A Look Back: The History of Spreckelsville
Spreckelsville started in 1878 as a "company town." This means it was built by a company for its workers. It was founded by a German-American businessman named Claus Spreckels. He later started the famous Spreckels Sugar Company.
Claus Spreckels already had a very successful sugar business in California. He came to Maui in 1876 after a special agreement was made. This agreement, called the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, made it easier to sell sugar from Hawaii to the United States without high taxes. Spreckels first didn't like the treaty, but then decided to build his own sugar farms in Hawaii.
At that time, other sugar growers, Henry Perrine Baldwin and Samuel Thomas Alexander, were building a water system called the Hamakua ditch to water their farms. Spreckels wanted to compete with them, but he didn't own much land or have rights to water.
Spreckels managed to buy and rent about 40,000 acres (162 square kilometers) of land. He also became friends with Walter M. Gibson, who advised King Kalākaua. Spreckels loaned money to the king. In return, the king and Gibson helped Spreckels get more land. The Hawaiian government at first said no to Spreckels' request for water rights. But King Kalākaua changed his government ministers to get his way. Spreckels then gave money and a loan to the government. In return, he got water rights for 30 years. Because of these clever moves, people called Spreckels "the sugar king of Hawaii." He even got rights to the Hamakua ditch if Baldwin and Alexander didn't finish it on time (they did).
Spreckels then started the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company (HC&S) with other smart people, including Hermann Schussler, a chief engineer. This company became one of the "Big Five" powerful businesses in Hawaii. The HC&S built the "Haiku ditch." This ditch carried 50 million gallons (190 million liters) of water daily over 30 miles (48 km) to his sugar farms. It crossed deep valleys and was even bigger than the Hamakua ditch.
The company also used new technology. They used electric lights so the sugar mill could run all night. They built a sugar mill that could process 20 tons of sugar every hour. They were also the first sugar farm to use trains to move sugarcane from the fields to the mill. The Haiku ditch, Hamakua ditch, and Lowrie ditch (built in 1900) are all part of the East Maui Irrigation System. This system is recognized as a very important historical engineering project.
By 1892, Spreckelsville had the largest sugarcane farm in the world. Thousands of workers from Japan, Korea, China, and other countries came to work there. They often lived in very basic housing. These old worker camps are gone now, and the land is used for sugar crops.
However, Spreckels started to face problems after 1886 when he lost favor with King Kalākaua. His company, HC&S, also faced new competition from other sugar businesses. The buildings in Spreckelsville started to wear down. Also, when Hawaii became part of the United States, the system of hiring workers with contracts changed. In 1898, another company, Alexander & Baldwin (A&B), took control of HC&S, and Spreckels had to leave.
Later, A&B sold the valuable land along the coast to people who wanted to build homes. Today, the houses and vacation rentals you see in Spreckelsville are on that land.
Beaches of Spreckelsville
Spreckelsville Beach is the old name for a stretch of sand about 2 miles (3.2 km) long. It goes from Kanaha Beach Park in Kahului to the Maui Country Club. This beach isn't one long sandy area. It's broken up by lava rocks, big stones, and structures called groins (which help stop sand from washing away). The different parts of the beach now have their own names. From west to east, they are:
- Camp One (20°54′35″N 156°25′24″W / 20.909835°N 156.423458°W) is named after one of the old sugar plantation worker camps. It's at the very west end of Spreckelsville Beach, near the Kahului Airport runway. Because of the airport, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) doesn't allow kitesurfing here. A small number of people who are experiencing homelessness also live here. You can get to Camp One by a road off the west end of Stable Road.
- Sprecks Beach (20°54′28″N 156°24′58″W / 20.907695°N 156.416174°W) is a popular spot for windsurfers, especially from Europe. That's why it's also called Euro Beach. There's a small parking area at the end of a dirt road from Stable Road.
- Lobster Cove (20°54′28″N 156°24′47″W / 20.907791°N 156.412946°W) can only be reached by walking from Sprecks Beach or Sugar Cove.
- Sugar Cove (20°54′34″N 156°24′35″W / 20.909420°N 156.409840°W) has private homes in front of it. But there's a public path with limited parking at the end of Paani Place.
- Baby Beach (20°54′46″N 156°24′08″W / 20.912742°N 156.402228°W) was once an ancient Hawaiian burial site. It's separated from the rest of Spreckelsville Beach by natural features, so it's usually thought of as its own beach now. It's actually the western end of a one-mile (1.6 km) beach that goes to Baldwin Beach Park in Paia. An exposed reef creates a calm, shallow area that's great for families. There's a parking area at the end of Kealaka Place.
