Ikua Purdy Statue (Hawaiian Cowboy Memorial), Parker Ranch Center

Waimea (Kamuela), Hawaii Island, Hawaii, United States

Public art

✓

Current

Listed, not yet checked

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A bronze sculpture by Fred Fellows of Ikua Purdy, the Parker Ranch paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) who won the 1908 World Steer Roping championship at Cheyenne Frontier Days, shown on horseback roping. Commissioned by the Paniolo Preservation Society, it is reported as 16 feet high and 27 feet long; the society gives its weight as 65 tons. It arrived in January 2003 and, the society says, was moved in August 2006 to a more prominent site along the highway at Parker Ranch Center, Waimea.

Private to your Passport.

PLAN YOUR VISIT

No recommended arrival yet

We have not checked a recommended place to arrive or stop here yet.

This takes you to the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Ikua Purdy Statue (Hawaiian Cowboy Memorial), Parker Ranch Center

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Approximate location · 20.023° N, 155.673° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Ikua Purdy, a paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) from Parker Ranch, won the world steer-roping championship at Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1908, and a bronze of him on horseback is on display in front of Parker Ranch Center in Waimea, as shown in a 2020 West Hawaii Today photograph.

The Paniolo Preservation Society commissioned the statue from Fred Fellows, a cowboy artist from Arizona, after Purdy was inducted into the National Cowboy Museum Hall of Fame. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported in 2003 that it shows Purdy roping a bull and measures 16 feet high and 27 feet long; its 2001 account of the plan described a size about a quarter larger than life, to be cast in Kalispell, Montana. The society, which gives the weight as 65 tons, says it paid for the work partly by selling small-scale models to individual investors.

The statue arrived at Kawaihae Harbor in January 2003 by tug and was trucked to Waimea, the society says. The Star-Bulletin reported that it was blessed on 23 February at the Parker Ranch Shopping Center and then towed back to a warehouse, because the planned patch of grass at the front of the center proved too small; the society's account instead says a crane placed it near the post office that month. The society says the center later expanded and that in August 2006 the statue was moved to a more prominent site along the highway, on a new concrete and lava-rock base.

A 2020 Wyoming Tribune Eagle article carried by West Hawaii Today reported that Purdy was the first non-Wyomingite to win the contest.

Add a photo

PRACTICAL

Plan your stop

WHAT TO EXPECT

Stands beside the highway at Parker Ranch Center, 67-1185 Mamalahoa Highway, Waimea (Kamuela), Hawaii Island. Brass replicas of paniolo family brands are set at its base.

ACCESS

Outdoors beside the Parker Ranch Center parking area and highway. Whether the shopping centre areas around it are open at all hours is not documented in the sources reviewed; check locally before visiting. Shopping-centre opening hours may affect parking.

COMMUNITY