Biohazard Cleanup Near Mānā Honokaa, HI

Honokaʻa is a census-designated place in the Hamakua District of Hawaiʻi County, on the northeast coast of the island of Hawaii.

The CDP had a population of 2,699 at the 2020 census, up 19.5 percent from 2010, with 844 households.

Honokaʻa's economy was based primarily on sugar production by the Hāmākua Sugar Company from 1873 to 1994.

The earliest sugar operation in the area began in 1876, when the Honokaʻa Sugar Plantation planted 500 acres of cane with Hawaiian labor and installed a rudimentary mill, the first in the Hamakua area.

Honokaʻa was once the third largest town in all of Hawaii, after Honolulu and Hilo, and its population peaked in the 1920s.

The town survived the destructive tsunami of 1946 largely because of its elevation of about 1,000 feet.

The Hāmākua Coast was the classic plantation community in the early 20th century, and since the closing of the Big Island's sugar industry the district has had to diversify its economy.

In 1916 the Honokaʻa Sugar Company became the world's oldest commercial producer of macadamia nuts as part of a reforestation effort, and its Honokaʻa Ranch division covered 2,600 acres of grazing land.

The Honokaʻa People's Theatre, a 525-seat theater built in 1930 by Japanese American entrepreneur Hatsuzo Tanimoto, still anchors the town's historic Mamane Street.

Mamane Street is lined with single-walled wooden plantation-era commercial buildings, the oldest of which dates to 1882.