STARADVERTISER / FEB. 27, 1988
Molokai firefighter Wren Wescott stands next to a 100-year-old steam engine that he helped restore, part of the R.W. Meyer Sugar Mill being set up at the fledgling Molokai Museum and Cultural Center near Kualapuu, where it will reside. Built by Edwin Maw in Liverpool, England, between 1855 and 1870 and operated on Molokai for a decade by Meyer starting in 1889, it was the last animal-powered sugar mill
in Hawaii. The mill had sat rusty and neglected at the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. on Maui. HC&S mechanics, assisted by Maui’s Pioneer Mill and volunteers working at Puna Biomass Co. and Hamakua Sugar Plantation on the Big Island; Oahu Sugar Co.; and Olokele Sugar Co., Kekaha Sugar Co. and McBryde Sugar Co. on Kauai helped lovingly restore it, fabricating missing and broken parts from scratch.