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Native Hawaiians settled Hawaiʻi Island roughly a thousand years ago, and it became the seat of the chief who would unite the islands: Kamehameha I, born in the Kohala district, had brought the major islands together under the Hawaiian Kingdom by 1795. In 1793 Captain George Vancouver had given Kamehameha a gift of cattle, which were set loose and multiplied across the uplands — the start of the island's ranch country. The first American missionaries landed at Kailua-Kona in 1820, and through the nineteenth century the island took on coffee, sugar, and cattle alongside its Hawaiian traditions. It is the largest of the Hawaiian Islands and, geologically, the youngest — still being built by its volcanoes.
To manage the wild cattle, ranchers brought Mexican vaqueros to the island in the 1830s; they trained Hawaiian riders, who became the paniolo — Hawaiʻi's cowboys, named from español. Parker Ranch took root in Waimea in 1847 and grew into one of the largest ranches in the United States. The coffee belt rose in the Kona uplands, and the great volcanoes drew the world: Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park was established in 1916 around Kīlauea and Mauna Loa, and the summit of Mauna Kea — sacred in Hawaiian culture and the tallest mountain on Earth base-to-peak — became home to world-class observatories. Two coasts, snow and lava, coffee and cattle: an island that is never quite finished.
Why People Visit the Big Island
People come to the Big Island for the volcanoes, the coffee, and the sheer range of it — snow and lava, ranch and reef, all on one island. Its towns of Hilo, Kona, and Waimea give it two coasts and a paniolo heartland, and the land itself is still being built at the volcano's edge.
