Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum

Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum is located in the small sugarcane growing and milling community of Puʻunene, Hawaii, Kahului, Maui. The museum exhibits the history of Hawaiian sugarcane plantations and Alexander & Baldwin and its role in the sugarcane industry in Hawaii. The company itself continues in business and though it has diversified, it continues to produce sugarcane. The museum itself in the former mill manager's house.

Samuel Thomas Alexander (1836–1904) was a reverend and co-founder of an agricultural company. He met Dwight Baldwin in Hawaii. Alexander became manager of the Waiheʻe sugar plantation near Wailuku in 1863 and hired Henry Perrine Baldwin (1842–1911) as assistant. In 1870 he formed the Pāʻia plantation under the name Samuel T Alexander & Co. With Baldwin, he purchased 561 acres (227 ha) (2.3 km²) between Pāʻia and Makawao, where they cultivated sugarcane. As of 1871 he also managed the Haʻikū sugar mill which had been constructed in 1861 by Castle & Cooke.

The Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 removed tariffs on sugar exported to the United States. But to raise their production a steady supply of water was needed for the semi-arid dry forests of Pāʻia. Rain was plentiful miles away in the rainforests on the windward slopes of Haleakalā mountain, so Alexander proposed a 17-mile-long (27 km) irrigation aqueduct that diverted water from that part of Haleakalā to their plantation. Alexander knew about irrigation systems used since ancient Hawaii while he was at Lahainaluna, but this was on a much larger scale. He negotiated a lease of water rights from King Kalākaua and raised financing from other partners. It was initially a 20-year lease for $100 per year. His brother James did a survey.

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