“Waimea Preservation Association (WPA) has been helping care for Minuke’ole Park behind Parker Ranch Shopping Center for a number of years. One restoration event was a Hawaiian dry-stone setting workshop in 2016 sponsored by WPA and other community organizations. The wall rebuilding project recalled the name of the park, formerly a Parker Ranch corral. Paniolo “Koko” Lindsey roped an animal in less than a minute, giving the site its name.”
Historic corral dry wall stone setting at YMCA Minukeole Park
Following the design once created by artful ancestral craftsman with present guidance from the Royal Order of Kamehameha 1, Moku O Kohala, the National Parks Puu Kohala N.P. and volunteers spent last Friday carrying stones to rebuild the wall at the Waimea park.
In addition, on June 4th and 5th volunteers from AYSO, Rotary Club of North Hawaii, Waimea Preservation Association and Waimea Hawaiian Civic Club helped with further clean-up while gaining valuable experience.
Off-Island visitors led by Kuaina Ulu Auamo (KUA) visited Waimea for training last weekend to learn the art in order to take back experience for their own restoring projects
The Pavilion is located on a historical ten acres.
The history of the ten acres as seen through the eyes of Hisao (Hisa) Kimura and Elizabeth (Tida) Lindsey-Kimura. Hisa worked for Parker Ranch for more than 47 years. Both Hisa and Tida were born and raised in Waimea.
Bordering on the south end of the ten acres (to the rear of the Town Hall) was the slaughterhouse, still standing A meat market was located where the current U.S. Post Office is. The ten acres were used as an overnight holding pen for cattle that were scheduled to be slaughtered. The holding pen was connected to the slaughterhouse. The ten acres were extremely active during World War II as the slaughterhouse was busy producing meat for the military.
During the era around 1920, the ten acres were just part of the Parker Ranch. The property where Ace Hardware is located was a corral area where mules were trained for the military sugar plantations and sugar plantation wild horses were broken. Each cowboy working on the Parker Ranch had eighteen horses, nine in active use while the other nine rested and grazed in open pastures. The cowboys rotated the horses every three months. Cowboys worked from sun-up to sun-down, 5-6 days a week. They mostly created their own entertainment. At that time in history, early 1900’s Parker Ranch did not permit Rodeos, believing it stressed out the animals too much. The cowboys used the ten acres to practice their roping techniques and have competition among themselves for entertainment. There was one particular cowboy who was quite good at roping, John “Poko” Lindsey (Teda’s father, Lester Kimura’s grandfather). Poko could rope a calf in less than a minute and the ten acres were thereafter called the “Minuke Pen”. Minuke, meaning minute.
A few years after World War II the slaughterhouse closed, for good. The ten acres remained idol until 1971 when Parker Ranch incorporated it into their cattle operation including a Parker Ranch Visiting Center with a video theatre and within the 10 acres “The Minuke Pen”, a show pen, was constructed where the famous Prime Parker Ranch Purebred Hereford cattle could be viewed by visitors and cattlemen. Parker Ranch currently leased the ten acres to the YMCA for $1.00 per year for 99 years. The Rotary Club of North Hawaii is building a ‘Rotary Pavilion’ on the ten acres, and donating it for community use
