Our Story
- Hawaii Electric Light History
- 1890: The Beginning of Hawaii Electric Light
- 1930: Electrifying Hawaii Island
- 1940: More Power to the Big Island
- 1950: Growth Continues
- 1960: Construction Boom
- 1970: Hawaii Electric Light Company is Formed
- 1980: Growth From Tourism
- 1990: Renewable Power
- 2000: Powering Our Communities
- 2005: Building Energy Partnerships
- 2010: Clean Energy Future
More Power to the Big Island
The 30's slogan: "Watch Hilo Grow" was replaced with "More Power to the Big Island" as the theme for the'40s. The postwar baby-boom coupled with tremendous migration to Hilo and its surrounding areas, accelerated development.
Hilo Electric now served almost 600 square miles, or an area of little more than one quarter of the island, where about four-fifths of the Big island population of nearly 30,000 people lived.
The company began planning to extend its service into Kamuela and had entered into negotiations with the Territorial Government to purchase land there to build a small emergency power plant and storage yard. Parker Ranch approved transmission line rights-of-way.
