[ MAUKA MAKAI ]

BY BURL BURLINGAME / BBURLINGAME@STARBULLETIN.COM
The Dole "pineapple" water tower stood tall over the city for
decades but eventually succumbed to time and rust.

Dole icon endures
as a shadow of
its former self

COVER STORY

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By Burl Burlingame
bburlingame@starbulletin.com

The Dole "pineapple" water tower was one of the distinguishing landmarks on the Honolulu cityscape for more than 60 years. Standing more than a hundred feet tall, including the office building it was attached to, it was one of the tallest structures on Oahu prior to World War II.

Designed and erected in 1927, it held 100,000 gallons of water and weighed 30 tons. It was better known than the "peach" water towers of Clanton, Ala., and Gaffney, S.C.; than the giant Brooks Foods ketchup-bottle water tower of Cillinsville, Ill.; even better known than the Libby Foods ear-of-corn water tower in Rochester, Minn.

COVER STORY

Dole tried to disassociate itself from its food line in the early '90s, and subsidiary Castle & Cook took over the cannery, transforming it into a kind of business mall. Unused since 1989, the pineapple tower was falling apart, and Dole was given a preservation award by the Historic Hawaii Foundation to pay for its long-term care.

BY BURL BURLINGAME / BBURLINGAME@STARBULLETIN.COM
The crown is all that is left, and sits in a parking lot outside the
cannery, which has become a shopping complex.

But rust never sleeps. The pineapple was disassembled in October 1993 because of corrosion problems.

The crown was saved and sits near the rear parking lot. The legs were torched off, and the stumps are visible from upper floors of the complex. And the shadow of the pineapple water tower was preserved in paint on the back side of one of the office structures.

Castle & Cook has no plans at the moment regarding the pineapple tower or its remains.

BY BURL BURLINGAME / BBURLINGAME@STARBULLETIN.COM
The shadow that the tower cast on a cannery building was
preserved there in paint. You can even see shadows of
people who were standing below the tower
when the painting was made.

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