Akoni Pule Highway

The ʻAkoni Pule Highway is the name for most of Hawaiʻi State Highway [270], the main route along the North Kohala Coast on the Island of Hawaiʻi from Kawaihae to ʻUpolu Point and then on to Pololū Valley Lookout.

Prior to the 1970s, the only means of driving to North Kohala District was along the winding, narrow Kohala Mountain Road [25]. The Hawaiʻi DOT already had plans for a coastal Route 11 along the Kohala Peninsula in the early-1960s to connect with Routes 25 and 27 in Hāwī. However, about the only action taken over the next ten years was the reässignment of highway shield numbers and the appointment of Route 270 to the proposed highway.

Akoni Pule, the State legislator who represented North Kohala, pushed relentlessly for a safer alternative to Kohala Mountain Road [250] and a second access to the “twin” towns of Hāwī and Kapaʻau. He was also instrumental in providing the necessary state and federal funds to complete construction. The new road was dedicated in his honour in July 1973.