A generation has passed since Lanai was covered in gold — the gold of pineapple ripening in fields stretching as far as the eye could see. For nearly 70 years, life on the 141-square-mile island revolved around the fruit that has become synonymous with ­Hawaii, and the Lanai Pineapple Festival, held each year on the Saturday closest to the Fourth of July, recalls that.

“Other events are held at Dole Park, but the pineapple festival is by far the biggest,” said Kay Okamoto, president of the board of the ­Lanai Community Association, which puts on the celebration. “It started in 1993, the year after ­Lanai’s last pineapple crop was harvested. Many of the former plantation workers have passed away or are elderly now, and we want to make sure the young ones know about that chapter in our island’s history.”

The Lanai Culture & Heritage Center (lanaichc.org) will be exhibiting a timeline of Lanai’s history, and its staff and volunteers will be asking festival attendees to help identify the people, locations and events in albums of scanned photos that will also be on view.

“This year, we hope to also display the first motorized vehicle to be used on Lanai,” said Kepa Maly, executive director of the Lanai CHC. “The Avery truck was purchased and brought to Lanai in 1912 by Charles Gay, who owned portions of Lanai between 1902 and 1921. It remained on Lanai until 1975, when Ross Moody of Walker-Moody Construction took it to Honolulu and restored it. In 2011, Mr. Moody and his family kindly returned the truck to Lanai as a gift to the Lanai CHC. Our goal is to have the truck on permanent display soon.”

Other highlights include games, prize giveaways, continuous live music, craft and food booths, a cooking challenge featuring favorite plantation appetizers and main dishes, and a car show (decorated bicycles, tricycles, scooters, trailers, lawn mowers and wheelchairs will be there, too). Complimentary fresh pineapple chunks will be passed out throughout the event, which will conclude with a fireworks display.

“The pineapple festival is a snapshot of what it’s like to live in a small, close-knit community where there are no traffic lights or fast-food chains,” Okamoto said. “You know your neighbors, the cashiers at the grocery stores, the tellers at the bank. The pineapple days might be long gone, but in many ways, Lanai still reflects the best of old Hawaii.”

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History of isle’s pineapple era

In August 1922, James Dole’s Hawaiian Pineapple Company bought nearly 99% of Lanai for $1.1 million dollars. At the time of the purchase, about 125 people were living on the island, primarily Native Hawaiians who were employees of Lanai Ranch at Koele.

Early the following year, the dredging and construction of Kaumalapau Harbor began, and fields for the planting of pineapple were being cleared in Palawai Basin. A workforce population was brought to the island to complete the projects; among the first to settle were the Japanese, many of whom were skilled stone masons and carpenters.

They were followed by Filipinos, Chinese, Portuguese, Koreans and Puerto Ricans. There were also a number of Caucasian residents, who served as managers and luna (overseers) of the plantation operations.

The first harvests were made in 1926. In the early years, pineapple was picked and bagged in the fields and put in crates set along the roads. The crates were then loaded on wagons (later on trucks) and transported to Kaumalapau Harbor for shipping to Iwilei Cannery in Honolulu.

Over the years, various equipment and machines were developed to simplify the planting, watering and harvesting process. Machines laid out mulch paper, marking the planting rows. Large boom and spray sprinklers were developed to water and fertilize the crops. In the late 1940s, 62-foot-long conveyor booms with lights were developed so fruit could be harvested day and night.

Workers walked along rows of pineapple, picked the fruit and tossed it onto the conveyors, which carried it to trucks. Before heading to the harbor, the trucks were each loaded with up to eight tons of fresh fruit. At the peak of the summer harvest, two barges a day carried a total of nearly 2,500 tons of pineapple from Lanai to Honolulu in a 24-hour period. For almost 70 years, Lanai was the world’s largest working pineapple plantation, cultivating some 20,000 acres.

In 1961, Castle & Cooke bought Dole Foods and began planning new resort and residential developments on Lanai. Those plans didn’t begin materializing until 1985 when David Murdock became owner/chairman of Castle & Cooke. Steps were taken to phase out the plantation, and the final harvest was made in 1992.

Today, Lanai is owned by Larry Ellison, co-founder, chairman of the board and chief technology officer of Oracle Corporation. Although the island’s resorts are its major economic engine, its population of about 3,200 still reflects the diversity of the people who came nearly a century ago to work in the pineapple fields. Each group retains facets of its own identity while creating a culture that is uniquely Lanai.

— Kepa Maly, executive director, Lanai Culture & Heritage Center

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.