During Kauai’s agricultural heyday in the early to mid 1900s, a concrete pier (now known as the Pineapple Dump Pier) was built by the Pono Pineapple Company of Kapaa to dump unusable portions of pineapples (crowns and skins) into the ocean.
A steam locomotive from a cane train was hired from the Lihue Plantation to carry the waste to the pier on Sundays, a day off for the plantation. Occasionally, unfavorable winds and currents pushed the floating debris back to Kapaa, creating a “terrible mess and foul stench” as it washed up on town beaches (according to signage near the pier).
Today, the pier is accessible via the Kapaa Bike Path and is near Donkey Beach (past Kealia Beach). Railings hinder access to the actual structure, but plenty of visitors make their way onto the pier anyway.
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