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CROCKETT — For more than a century, boats and later cargo ships from Hawaii laden with raw cane sugar sailed into the Carquinez Strait to the C&H sugar refinery here, once the largest in the world. Television screens in the 1960s through the ’80s regularly featured the iconic C&H jingle as Hawaiian children chewed on sugar cane and danced the hula.

But as sugar prices dropped globally and labor costs increased, Hawaii’s sugar mills have closed one by one.

Last week, the Moku Pahu, carrying 30,000 tons of sugar in her hull and a crew of 15, tied up at the Crockett refinery for the last time. The ship’s journey marks the end of a chapter for the small Contra Costa County town, whose history is intricately tied to the refinery, and represents the last C&H sugar from Hawaii the world will ever taste following the closing of the last sugar mill in Maui in December.

“It really is an end of an era,” said Christian Johnsen, the captain of the Moku Pahu, which arrived in San Francisco Bay at the end of December. “It’s something we knew was coming for a long time, but it’s still a shock.”

For more than a century, the sugar industry dominated Hawaii’s economy, bringing workers from the Philippines, China and Japan, who together with the Caucasian descendants of missionaries, shaped the islands’ demographics and culture. But in recent decades, the industry has been battered by overseas suppliers, which decimated prices, shuttering mills.

Today, despite the island hibiscus flower in its branding, a packet of C&H sugar is much more likely to have been grown in Vietnam or Brazil. After the Moku Pahu unloads its last shipment this week, all of the refinery’s sugar will be from foreign suppliers.

American Sugar Refining, the company that owns C&H, also sources from Texas, Louisiana and Florida, but none of that sugar is sent to the West Coast.

“It’s really unfortunate as a proud American manufacturer to see less sugar coming in from the U.S.,” said Peter O’Malley, a spokesman for ASR. “Low sugar prices and foreign subsidies continue to put domestic mills out of business. It’s a sad day for us.”

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Despite that, the company has no plans to change its name, which stands for California & Hawaii, or its logo.

On Tuesday, workers in Crockett watched as elevator buckets scooped sugar from the massive cargo vessel, built specifically for transporting sugar, onto a conveyor belt leading into the refinery. Against the backdrop of the Carquinez Bridge on one side and the brick facade of the factory, its steam rising into the crisp air, plant manager Michael Corbin shook hands with the captain for the last time and wished him well. As he walked down the gangplank, a sign made out of old sugar bags said, “Thank You C&H.”

Even though the Moku Pahu will no longer make the 10-day journey across the Pacific, refinery operations will not be affected. Approximately 450 people are employed at C&H, which produces 6 million pounds of sugar each day, from tiny packets found at Starbucks to five-pound bags of sugar sold in grocery stores all over the country.

As the last shipment of Hawaiian sugar was being unloaded, longtime Crockett residents recalled the many happy memories of living in what was long considered a company town, the kind of place where a day’s activities were marked by the plant’s shift change whistle and where children fell asleep to the flickering lights of the C&H sign in the distance. Residents, many of whom were connected to the refinery, benefited from the company’s largesse, including a community pool, social clubs and elaborate Christmas gifts for all children of refinery employees.

“It was a great place to grow up,” said Fred Clereci, a former C&H employee who still occasionally ties up sugar ships there.

This week, those same children, now grandfathers and grandmothers, contemplated the historic meaning of the Moku Pahu’s last voyage.

“It’s kind of sad, but I guess a lot more money can be made from tourism than sugar,” said Dee Boyd Burr, 82, whose great-grandfather went to work at the refinery in 1906, the year it opened, followed by generations of other men. “People who used to work there would say it’s really a shame that they’re getting their sugar from overseas, but that’s the way the world is.”

It’s an end of an era, but no one is shedding any tears. Instead, locals will line up under the Carquinez Bridge at 10 a.m. Saturday morning to give the Moku Pahu a final salute, armed with cameras and Mai Tai cocktails in honor of a special relationship that from now on will only exist in lore.