:Spreckelsville, Hawaii

It lies to the west of Paia and to the east of Kahului Airport. It is the home of the Maui Country Club. {{As of|2010}}, the population was 461.{{cite web | url=http://www.to-hawaii.com/maui/cities/spreckelsville.php |title=Spreckelsville | publisher=To-Hawaii.com | accessdate=September 3, 2015}}

The average amount of precipitation for the year in Spreckelsville is {{convert|22.6|in|mm|abbr=on}}. The month with the most precipitation on average is January, with {{convert|4.0|in|mm|abbr=on}}. The month with the least precipitation on average is June, with an average of {{convert|0.4|in|mm|abbr=on}}. There are an average of 112.0 days of precipitation, with the most precipitation occurring in March, with 13.0 days, and the least precipitation occurring in June, with 6.0 days.[https://m.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php?s=886815&cityname=Spreckelsville-Hawaii-United-States-of-America] Spreckelsville weather, weather base.com

{{further|Sugar plantations in Hawaii}}

File:'Japanese Laborers on Spreckelsville Plantation', oil on canvas painting by Joseph Dwight Strong, 1885, private collection.jpg on Spreckelsville Plantation, Maui, oil on canvas painting by Joseph Dwight Strong, 1885]]

Spreckelsville was founded in 1878 as a company town by German-American businessman Claus Spreckels, who later founded the Spreckels Sugar Company. Spreckels already ran the most successful sugar refinery in California{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Char|title=Cities and Nature in the American West|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NGMlE6_16QUC&pg=PA21|accessdate=4 September 2015|year=2010|publisher=University of Nevada Press|isbn=9780874178241|pages=18–23}} (and was the namesake of the town of Spreckels in Monterey County, California). He arrived in Maui in 1876 after the passage of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, which gave freer access to market for sugar exported to the United States. Spreckels initially opposed the treaty, fearing that low tariffs on sugar would be detrimental to his business. After its passage, he resolved to establish his own plantations instead.

At the time, his rivals Henry Perrine Baldwin and Samuel Thomas Alexander were building the Hamakua ditch to irrigate their plantation in nearby Haliimaile.{{cite book|last=Clark|first=John R. K.|title=The Beaches of Maui County|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nrw8rIO1dlQC&pg=PA10|accessdate=September 3, 2015|date=January 1989|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|isbn=9780824812461|pages=9–10}} Spreckels intended to compete with them, but had neither any land nor any water rights.

Spreckels was able to purchase and lease {{convert|40000|acre|km2}} of land and became friends with Walter M. Gibson, adviser to King Kalākaua. Together, they made arrangements where Spreckels would loan the king money and in return, he and Gibson would increase the Spreckels' land holdings. Furthermore, the king had the Hawaiian legislature grant use of royal lands in fee. The royal government initially denied Spreckels' request for water rights, but Kalākaua dismissed his ministers and replaced them with others who would obey his orders. Spreckels then made a financial gift and loan to the government in return for water rights for 30 years. These political machinations on his behalf earned Spreckels the nicknames "the sugar king of Hawaii" and "His Royal Saccharinity". He was also granted the rights to the Hamakua ditch if Baldwin and Alexander could not complete it on schedule (they did).

File:BIRDS EYE VIEW OF SUGAR MILL (photograph, 1890) - Spreckels Sugar Mill, Spreckelsville, Maui County, HI HABS HI,5-SPRK,1-2.tif

Spreckels then incorporated the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company (HC&S) with Hermann Schussler, chief engineer of California's Spring Valley Water Works, and others, which joined the "Big Five" to become one of the most powerful entities in Hawaii. The HC&S built the "Haiku ditch" to deliver {{nowrap|50 million}} gallons ({{nowrap|190 million}} liters) of water over {{convert|30|mi|km}} daily to his plantation lands, crossing ravines several hundred feet deep, surpassing the Hamakua ditch in volume and scope.{{cite book|last=Tucker|first=Richard P.|title=Insatiable Appetite: The United States and the Ecological Degradation of the Tropical World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jvwe2wZFuFMC&pg=PA82|accessdate=4 September 2015|year=2000|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520923812|page=82}} Other technological advancements included using electric lighting to allow the plant to operate deep into the night, construction of a sugar mill that was capable of processing {{nowrap|20 tons}} of sugar per hour, and being the first plantation to use rail to transport sugarcane from the fields to the mill.{{cite book|last=Galloway|first=J. H.|title=The Sugar Cane Industry: An Historical Geography from Its Origins to 1914|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y96agmiQP7gC&pg=PA228|accessdate=4 September 2015|date=2005-11-10|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521022194|page=228}} The Haiku ditch, the Hamakua ditch, and the Lowrie ditch (built in 1900 for the plantation{{cite book|title=All about Hawaii: The Recognized Book of Authentic Information on Hawaii, Combined with Thrum's Hawaiian Annual and Standard Guide|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lE8XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA49|year=1900|publisher=Honolulu Star-Bulletin|pages=154–161}}) are part of the East Maui Irrigation System, which has been recognized as a Historical Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.{{cite web| url=http://www.asce.org/project/east-maui-irrigation-system/ | title=East Maui Irrigation System | publisher=American Society of Civil Engineers | accessdate=8 September 2015}}

By 1892, Spreckelsville was the largest sugarcane plantation in the world, and employed thousands of immigrant farm laborers from Japan,{{cite book|last=Kiyosaki|first=Wayne|title=Talk Pidgin; Speak English: Go Local; Go American: The Japanese Immigrant Experience in Spreckelsville, Maui|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=01OVAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA50|accessdate=September 3, 2015|date=May 13, 2014|publisher=AuthorHouse|isbn=9781496907516|page=50}} Korea,{{cite book|last1=Chang|first1=Roberta|last2=Patterson|first2=Wayne|title=The Koreans in Hawaiʻi: A Pictorial History, 1903-2003|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h1qQ0cC3C-QC&pg=PA43|accessdate=4 September 2015|date=January 2003|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|isbn=9780824826857|page=43}} China,{{cite book|last=Pryor|first=Alton|title=Little Known Tales in Hawaii History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WFCewWiDeOwC&pg=PA118|accessdate=4 September 2015|year=2004|publisher=Stagecoach Pub.|isbn=9780974755113|pages=118–19}} and other countries, who often lived in squalid conditions. These camps no longer exist and the land they were on has been reclaimed for sugar crops.

However, Spreckels began suffering setbacks after falling out of Kalākaua's favor in 1886.{{#tag:ref|Both the king and Gibson were in debt to Spreckels due to gambling and tired of his demands. Kalākaua was able to secure a loan from a London creditor and paid off his debt to Spreckels, freeing him of the latter's influence.|group="notes"}} Besides Alexander & Baldwin (A&B), the HC&S faced new competition from the California and Hawaiian Sugar Company, which grew to become one of largest sugar refineries in the world. Other problems included deterioration of the Spreckelsville facilities and the annexation of Hawaii by the United States, which brought an end to contract laborers. A&B then gained control of the HC&S in 1898, forcing Spreckels out.

Alexander & Baldwin closed the by-then outdated mill at Spreckelsville in 1902, shifting HC&S factory operations to the newly constructed mill at Puʻunene. Later in the century, as tourism displaced sugar as Maui's primary industry, A&B gradually sold off the desirable coastal lands to real estate developers and Spreckelsville became a residential and vacation rental community.

Kahului Airport began operating in 1952, with its main runway immediately to the southwest of Spreckelsville, leading to issues with airport noise pollution in the community.

File:Starr 051207-5655 Casuarina equisetifolia.jpg

Spreckelsville Beach is the historic name for approximately {{convert|2|mi|km|spell=in}} in length from Kanaha Beach Park on the west in Kahului to Maui Country Club on the east. The beach is not one continuous stretch of sand, but is broken up into sections by lava, boulders, and groins. The different sections of the beach are now known by separate names. From west to east, they are:

• Camp One ({{coord|20.909835|-156.423458}}) is named after one of the sugarcane plantation camps and is located at the westernmost end of Spreckelsville Beach at the end of the Kahului Airport runway. As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration has banned kitesurfing in this location.{{cite web | url=http://www.mauikiteboardingassociation.com/kitemaps.html | title=Maui Kiteboarding Areas, Zones and Beaches | publisher=Maui Kiteboarding Association | accessdate=September 4, 2015}} It is also where a small number of Maui's homeless population lives.{{cite web | url=http://mauiguidebook.com/beaches/spreckelsville-beach/ | title=Spreckelsville Beach | publisher=Maui Guidebook | accessdate=September 4, 2015}} Beachgoers can reach Camp One via an access road off the western end of Stable Rd.
• Sprecks Beach ({{coord|20.907695|-156.416174}}) is popular among European windsurfers, and as such is also known as Euro Beach. There is a small area where cars may be parked at the end of a dirt road leading from Stable Rd.
• Lobster Cove ({{coord|20.907791|-156.412946}}) is only publicly accessible by foot from Sprecks Beach or Sugar Cove.
• Sugar Cove ({{coord|20.909420|-156.409840}}) is fronted by private condominiums, but there is a public access path with limited parking at the end of Paani Place.{{cite web | url=http://www.mauiwindsurfing.net/maui-windsurfing-information/maui-windsurfing-beaches/sprecks-and-sugar-cove/ | title=Sprecks and Sugar Cove | publisher=Maui Windsurfing | accessdate=September 4, 2015}}
• Baby Beach ({{coord|20.912742|-156.402228}}) was an ancient Hawaiian burial site. It is separated from the rest of Spreckelsville Beach by shoreline features and thus is generally now considered to be distinct from it. In fact, it is the western end of a one-mile (1.6 km) portion of beach that stretches to Baldwin Beach Park in Paia. An exposed reef creates a lagoon that makes the beach popular with families. It is served by a parking area at the end of Kealakai Place.{{cite web | url=http://mauiguidebook.com/beaches/baby-beach/ | title=Baby Beach (N Shore) | publisher=Maui Guidebook | accessdate=September 4, 2015}}

{{reflist|group="notes"}}

{{reflist}}

• {{Commons category-inline}}
• [http://hdoa.hawaii.gov/arm/files/2012/12/Map11.pdf Map of the East Maui Irrigation System] (PDF), Hawaii State Department of Agriculture

{{coord|20.9135032|-156.434778|display=title}}

{{Maui County, Hawaii}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Populated places on Maui

Category:Unincorporated communities in Maui County, Hawaii

Category:Unincorporated communities in Hawaii

Category:Populated places established in 1878

Category:1878 establishments in Hawaii

Category:Company towns in Hawaii

Category:Sugar plantations in Hawaii