Hawaii Wow!
Listen up pilgrim. The Parker Ranch on the Big Island used to stretch for 550,000 acres, making it the biggest cattle ranch in the U.S. at the time.
Wait a minute, how the heck did cows and cowboys wind up in Hawaii?
It's a pretty neat story. It all started when sailor John Parker jumped ship in 1809. Apparently he liked what he saw, because he came back in 1815 and married Kipikane, the daughter of a chief. King Kamehameha I gave Parker the job of culling thousands of wild cattle on the island. The cattle had exploded from just five head given to the king by a British sea captain two decades earlier.
Parker founded his own ranch in 1847, making it one of the oldest in the United States. Today, it's still one of the larger ranches at 175,000 acres and more than 30,000 head of cattle. Hawaiian cowboys are called "paniolos," a word derived from "espanol." That's because Hawaiians learned cowboying when King Kamehamea III brought in California vaqueros to teach them.
Guess what? You can tour this ranch, dude. Go on horse or ATV. You can hunt birds, wild pig and even wild cattle. After that, you can get married there. It's a good place to spend your dough because the ranch is operated by a trust that supports schools, hospitals and other causes.
Oh, did we mention that it's on the slopes of a volcano?
Wait a minute, how the heck did cows and cowboys wind up in Hawaii?
It's a pretty neat story. It all started when sailor John Parker jumped ship in 1809. Apparently he liked what he saw, because he came back in 1815 and married Kipikane, the daughter of a chief. King Kamehameha I gave Parker the job of culling thousands of wild cattle on the island. The cattle had exploded from just five head given to the king by a British sea captain two decades earlier.
Parker founded his own ranch in 1847, making it one of the oldest in the United States. Today, it's still one of the larger ranches at 175,000 acres and more than 30,000 head of cattle. Hawaiian cowboys are called "paniolos," a word derived from "espanol." That's because Hawaiians learned cowboying when King Kamehamea III brought in California vaqueros to teach them.
Guess what? You can tour this ranch, dude. Go on horse or ATV. You can hunt birds, wild pig and even wild cattle. After that, you can get married there. It's a good place to spend your dough because the ranch is operated by a trust that supports schools, hospitals and other causes.
Oh, did we mention that it's on the slopes of a volcano?
Riding trail on the huge Parker Ranch.
--Hawaii Tourism Japan (HTJ)
--Hawaii Tourism Japan (HTJ)
Grazing in paradise on the largest privately owned and largest contiguous ranch in the nation.* -- Commander John Bortniak, NOAA Corps (ret.)
* We hear you, quibblers. Listen, the King Ranch in Texas is owned by a corporation and is split into four parts, only two of which touch briefly. Contiguous means no separation.
Biggest U.S. cattle ranch used to be in Hawaii