The modern town took shape more quietly than most of Hawaiʻi. A sugar mill opened in 1849 and plantations worked the coast for a century, until the last mill closed in the 1940s. When sugar failed, a San Francisco businessman named Paul Fagan bought up land, started the Hāna Ranch with Hereford cattle, and in 1946 opened the hotel that became the Hotel Hāna-Maui — turning Hāna into a small, slow, deliberately undeveloped retreat. It has stayed that way: a working ranch town and a handful of cottages at the end of the long road.
Hāna sits on the wet, windward side of Maui, where the trade winds wring rain from the slopes of Haleakalā and the whole coast runs deep green. South of town, in the Kīpahulu district of Haleakalā National Park, the ʻOheʻo Gulch pools step down to the sea, and the Pīpīwai Trail climbs through a bamboo forest to the tall Waimoku Falls. The name Hāna is often read as ʻrainy land,ʻ and the rain is the reason for the waterfalls, the taro, and the green.
Why People Visit Hāna
People come the length of the highway for the quiet at the end of it: a pocket of old Hawaiʻi with black-sand beaches, waterfalls, and a slow, traditional pace. The drive is the point, and Hāna is the reward — so take it slowly, and travel with respect for a place that has kept old Hawaiʻi close.
