Spreckelsville, Hawaii

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.

[3] At the time, his rivals Henry Perrine Baldwin and Samuel Thomas Alexander were building the Hamakua ditch to irrigate their plantation in nearby Haliimaile.

[3] 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.

[4] 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.

[8] By 1892, Spreckelsville was the largest sugarcane plantation in the world,[3] and employed thousands of immigrant farm laborers from Japan,[9] Korea,[10] China,[11] and other countries, who often lived in squalid conditions.

Other problems included deterioration of the Spreckelsville facilities and the annexation of Hawaii by the United States, which brought an end to contract laborers.

[3] Eventually, A&B sold off the desirable coastal lands to real estate developers, and those houses and vacation rentals are the ones that now make up the community.