The oldest house in the smallest city in America.
Parker is a little and almost forgotten town on the Allegheny River. It was incorporated as a city on March 1, 1873 during the northwestern Pennsylvania oil boom. At the date of its incorporation Parker had around 20,000 inhabitants, but now has only 780. The name of this city was adopted as an honor to John Parker, who surveyed most of the land now included in the counties of Armstrong and Butler. In 1797, he was granted several hundred acres of land for his services, most of it being on the present site of Parker City. In 1824, Judge Parker built a large building on Parker's Landing which was used as a warehouse for the steam boat and timber industry. In 1869, the oil boom caused Parker Landing to rapidly become a center of intense activity. Rude shanties, saloons, stores, hotels, eating houses and machine shops soon crowded every available space along the base of the bluff. Repeated fires destroyed these "shacks," but the loss was unnoticed and they were replaced as soon as the fires died down. Judge Parker converted his building from a warehouse into a hotel to accommodate the influx of people. It passed unscathed through the many fires since its erection and still operates today as the Parker House Hotel.
During the oil boom fortunes could be made overnight, this attracted a criminal element to Parker. One notable character of those days is Ben Hogan. He was a prize fighter, bounty jumper and blockade runner during the Civil war. He bought several flatboats and moored them in front of the town. On one he kept a saloon and gambling joint, on another he promoted a series of weekly prize fights, and on the third he kept “filled with women of evil character and great physical attractiveness”. Hogan’s "Floating Palace of Pleasure" had special entertainment scheduled at various times particularly at 5:00 PM every day. It was mandatory "Bath Time" in the river for the girls, and Hogan turned it into a hit feature. Men paid well for deck chairs positioned to allow a good view of the proceedings. There were also some hands-on interludes when, for two bucks, a gentleman could jump into the river and assist the bare bathers.The Parker House was also a popular location at this time as it provide much of the same services found on “Hogan's floating palace”. It has been said that for a three block section in Parker every other house was a brothel, eatery, or saloon. There were so many people in Parker that they constructed an elevator to transport people from Parker's Landing to the top of the bluff.
During the oil boom fortunes could be made overnight, this attracted a criminal element to Parker. One notable character of those days is Ben Hogan. He was a prize fighter, bounty jumper and blockade runner during the Civil war. He bought several flatboats and moored them in front of the town. On one he kept a saloon and gambling joint, on another he promoted a series of weekly prize fights, and on the third he kept “filled with women of evil character and great physical attractiveness”. Hogan’s "Floating Palace of Pleasure" had special entertainment scheduled at various times particularly at 5:00 PM every day. It was mandatory "Bath Time" in the river for the girls, and Hogan turned it into a hit feature. Men paid well for deck chairs positioned to allow a good view of the proceedings. There were also some hands-on interludes when, for two bucks, a gentleman could jump into the river and assist the bare bathers.The Parker House was also a popular location at this time as it provide much of the same services found on “Hogan's floating palace”. It has been said that for a three block section in Parker every other house was a brothel, eatery, or saloon. There were so many people in Parker that they constructed an elevator to transport people from Parker's Landing to the top of the bluff.