PAHALA, Hawaii: Its a throw back to the olden days in Ka’u this weekend.

Julia Neal passes along this information about the Pahala Plantation Days:

KA`U PLANTATION DAYS invites everyone to bring their photos, their memorabilia and their voices to talk story about the agricultural heritage in Ka`u that produced the unique multicultural community that thrives there. The event, this Saturday, Aug. 20. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., will be held at Pahala Plantation House on Maile Street in Pahala. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the closing of the Ka`u sugar mill. The anniversary will celebrate history of the plantation and the evolution of agriculture in Ka`u. The event begins at 9 a.m. with parading of a retired Ka`u sugar cane truck. The route will be from Pahala Armory to the corner of Pikake and Maile Streets in front of the old manager’s house.

The Plantation House will host a presentation on old pictures of the sugar mill, Pahala, and sugar workers and their families. Lunch will celebrate the town’s diversity with Filipino, Hawaiian, Portuguese, and Japanese food. Displays of Chinese life and the other ethnic groups form the town will be at stations around the yard and in the house. There will be Portuguese and Filipino dancing throughout the day and a video on the last cane harvest in Pahala.

One former sugar worker, Manuel Marques, will serve up some of the new economy, Ka`u coffee. Marques has been one of the top winners in the Specialty Coffee Association of America competition. His former jobs on the plantation ranged from field work to cane truck driver and mill crane operator.

PHOTO: The old sugar mill in 1900, the last mill torn down in 1996.