Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Pepeekeo, HI

Pepeekeo is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County on the east side of the island of Hawaii, spelled Pepe'ekeo by the Census Bureau.

The 2020 census counted 1,826 residents in the Pepe'ekeo CDP, living in 609 households according to the State of Hawaii Data Book 2023, up from 1,789 residents at the 2010 census and 1,697 at the 2000 census.

The Pepe'ekeo CDP covers 1.10 square miles, all of it land, according to the 2020 U.S. Gazetteer, and it sits at an elevation of 564 feet with the ZIP code 96783.

Pepeekeo lies along Hawaii Route 19, 3.5 miles south of Honomu, 3 miles north of Papaikou, and 7 miles north of Hilo.

Pepeekeo was a sugar plantation town for 123 years, beginning as the Metcalf Plantation in 1857 at Kaupakuea, where the first crop was harvested in 1859 and the mill was the first factory in Hawaii to use the vacuum pan, in 1863.

In 1874, after Theophilus Metcalf's death, the plantation was purchased by Chinese investor Chun Afong and Achuck and renamed the Pepeekeo Sugar Company, and Afong was Hawaii's only Asian plantation owner of the last century.

Pepeekeo Sugar merged with Honomu Sugar in 1946 and Hakalau Sugar in 1963, and in 1973 it merged with Mauna Kea Sugar to form the Mauna Kea Sugar Company.

Pepeekeo's school had closed about 30 years before 2002, and children from the community were bused four miles south to Kalaniana'ole School in Papaikou.

The Pepe'ekeo 4-Mile Scenic Drive, a stretch of the Old Mamalahoa Highway, runs through the area toward Onomea Bay and the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden just to the south.

The former sugar mill at Pepeekeo, whose mill structure was built in 1974, was converted to a power plant in 1996 under the Hilo Coast Processing Company, and the site later became the Hu Honua Bioenergy plant.