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Prior to European contact, early Hawaiians farmed sweet potatoes, dry land taro and harvested wood, birds and pigs from forested areas (the bare slopes you see today, were once covered with sweet smelling Sandlewood and Koa trees). Modern agriculture began in 1845 on what is now Ulupalakua Ranch lands, that era lasting until 1856 when Linton L. Torbert, active member of the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society, farmed potatoes and corn, primarily to supply island merchant ships and California’s ‘gold rush’ era, with direction from King Kamehameha III, planted sugar cane. For the following three decades (1856-1886), ex-whaling captain, James Makee farmed sugar cane and other crops. This early entrepreneur even planted cotton to take advantage of the Union blockade of southern ports during the Civil War. Remnants of the sugar mill that Makee built, then at the lead of mill design and technology, are still visible on the ranch. Between 1886 and 1900, the property was owned and operated by the Dowsett family, and it was during this tenure that the property began ranching. From 1900 until 1922 the Raymond family completed the change from crop farming to a cattle ranch.