Maunaloa Attractions

This small village occupies an elevated position about 1 mile/1.5km from the western end of road 460. The fate of this former plantation settlement is perhaps symbolic of Molokai's varied development. Founded in the 1920s by the Dole Company for its pineapple plantation workers, Maunaloa died 50 years later when pineapple growing was abandoned owing to field irrigation problems. For a decade it became a ghost town. Only then did a few artists settle here and they have brought the place to life again as a center of craftwork. Although new buildings have been erected, some houses remain today as examples of Maunaloa's past as a typical plantation settlement.