Dole Pineapple Plantation
Turning southwards into central Oahu, we made our way to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Pineapple is not native to Hawaii, it is believed to have originated in Paraguay. Historians think the first pineapples arrived in the Hawaiian islands from a Spanish shipwreck in 1527. The Dole company was founded in Hawaii by James Drummond Dole in 1901 and pineapple became Hawaii’s second-largest industry. In 1922, Dole purchased the island of Lanai — at that time a dry, cactus-covered island with about 150 inhabitants — and turned it into the world’s largest pineapple plantation. For nearly 70 years, Lanai supplied 75% of the world’s pineapple.
We took the self-guided plantation garden tour (I was intrigued to discover that pineapples grow in the ground), and stopped by the store where they sell more pineapple items (edible or otherwise) than I could have ever imagined.
Windward and North Shore