For more than 60 years the Dole Pineapple Water Tower was a prominent icon in Honolulu.
In 1927, the Hawaiian Pineapple Co., later Dole Pineapple, in Iwilei needed a water tower for its cannery’s fire-prevention sprinkler system. The company was enlarging its cannery operations, which now covered some 19 acres. Hawaii architect Charles William Dickey, James Dole’s brother-in-law, proposed to company engineer Simes Thurston Hoyt that the water tank might be fashioned to resemble a pineapple. Hoyt ordered blow-ups of the fruit, Ananas comosus—which is neither a pine nor an apple—and began sketching. He designed a 100,000-gallon tank, complete with 46 leaves, in eight sizes, rotated “to avoid too much regularity.” The tallest leaf was nearly nine feet tall, the smallest three feet. The tank would be 40 feet tall with a 24-foot circumference, constructed of 5/16 steel plates. He decreed that it should be painted in the “appearance of a pineapple.”
The Pineapple Water Tower was completed in January 1928 and CB&I’s newsletter, The Watertower, predicted that it would “no doubt be one of the important objects of interest to visitors at Honolulu.” The tower was shipped by rail and steamship to Hawaii. Originally it had green leaves and a canary-yellow body. It was erected on Feb. 23, 1928, placed on 100-foot steel legs atop the cannery, its tip nearly 200 feet above sea level. Because of its height, it was certified by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Service as a beacon to arriving ships and—when floodlit at night—as a signal to airplanes.
By the early ’90s, the pineapple’s steel-girder legs grew rusty. Soon its paint job faded and streaks of rust appeared down its flanks. The cannery closed in December 1992, and the pineapple was dismantled in October 1993, cut up into its original three pieces, and put in storage. Dole Canneries was converted to a movie-theater complex, sandwich shops and parking lots.
In 2001, the crown was put on display near the cannery, but it was soon stored again. In 2006, a bill was introduced in the Hawaii Legislature to preserve the tank. It went nowhere, but it was a worthwhile effort. By 2009, “It’s gone...It was badly corroded."
