Elevation: 5 feet

Current Real Estate Stats

Six miles south of Lahaina, there is a simple general store and an expensive French restaurant under old monkeypod trees mauka of the highway, remnants of a village known as Olowalu. Access to the ocean on the promontory across the road from the shops is blocked. There are a few houses along the ocean side that you really can't see from the road.

Olowalu is more than just this tiny little town. It is a V-shaped valley that cuts into the West Maui Mountains and spreads out into an alluvial fan down to the sea. There were villages in the area for centuries, but Olowalu earned its place in history the hard way.

In 1790, Captain Simon Metcalfe, captain of the American merchant ship Eleanora, murdered more than 100 innocent Hawaiians and wounded many more. The captain was incensed because he had been told that the Hawaiians who had stolen one of his ship's boats off East Maui and killed a member of his crew had come from Olowalu. In retaliation the captain went to Olowalu and lured more than 200 canoes out to the Eleanora, asked the canoes (many containing children) to gather on the starboard side and then bombarded them with his seven cannons. It is said that the actions of Captain Metcalfe did much to stir up animosity among the Hawaiians against the foreigners.

An ancient trail once led from Iao Valley through Olowalu Valley, through the only pass through the near-impassable West Maui Mountains. This is the trail that Maui chief Kahekili's son, Kalanikupule, took when he escaped from Kamehameha during the bloody battle of Kepaniwai.

It was probably over this same trail that Keopuolani, the highest ranking chiefess on Maui during the battle of Kepaniwai, was taken by her guardians, who tried to protect her from the upstart Kamehameha by spiriting her off to Molokai. It did not matter. When he had won Maui, Kamehameha went after her and married her, and since their children were of the highest rank, they inherited his kingdom.