PARKER RANCH rolls over 150,000 acres of scenic upcountry terrain. It is the home of the first Hawaiian PANIOLO (cowboys), a RACE TRACK, where record-setting thoroughbreds were trained, and a still-functioning CATTLE RANCH. Its colorful history can be traced to 1809, when sailor
John Palmer Parker landed in Hawai‘i, befriended
King Kamehameha I and eventually married the daughter of a high-ranking Hawaiian chief. After domesticating herds of wild cattle on MAUNA KEA , Parker purchased lands that eventually became PARKER RANCH . In the early 1900s, EBEN “RAWHIDE BEN” PARKER LOW, a famous Waimea cowboy, proved paniolos’ worth when he competed in the Frontier Days celebration in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Low’s cousin, Ikua Purdy, took first place; his half-brother, Archie Ka‘au‘a, took third; and his brother, Jack Low, took sixth.
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