The Town of Parker is located within the northern corner of the Colorado River Indian Tribe reservation on a mesa overlooking the Colorado River at an elevation of approximately 450 feet above sea level. The Town of Parker is within the Sonora Desert located near river bottomland and rugged low desert mountains. The Gibraltar Mountains lie east of the community while the Whipple and Riverside Mountains lie to the north and southwest respectively.

The original town site of Parker was surveyed and laid out in 1909 by a railroad location engineer by the name of Earl. H. Parker. However, the Town’s name and origin began when a post office was established January 6, 1871, on the Colorado River Indian reservation to serve the Indian agency. The post office was named Parker in honor of General Eli Parker who was Commissioner of Indian Affairs when the Colorado River Indian reservation was established by Congress in 1865.

Agricultural development, which is the present economical mainstay of the area, commenced on March 2, 1867, when Congress appropriated $50,000 for the Indians’ irrigation system. This money was used for the construction of the Grant-Dent canal from 1867 to 1871. Early irrigated farming was dismal and painstaking – banks washed away, canal caved in, wells served up alkali water, river flooding washed out new construction and equipment. However, these early failures did not discourage those who had visions of a great agricultural empire. By 1914 only 600 acres of Indian-owned land were being irrigated and inadequate drainage was water logging the majority of those acres. At this time, the Town of Parker had a population of 90, and the principal economic activity of the Town was a service and shipping center for agriculture and mining activities scattered throughout the area.

In 1937, a highway bridge was completed across the Colorado River connecting Arizona to California, thus ending the ferry service that had been in operation for 27 years by Joe Bush and his wife, Nellie T. In 1928, Parker Dam was completed, thus ensuring better water control of the river and creating a lake approximately 700 feet wide and 16 miles long called Lake Moovalya, and Indian word meaning “blue water”. Thus the creation of, and ease of access to Lake Moovalya changed the character of the Town of Parker to some extent from a service center for agricultural and mining workers to one of providing supplies and services to tourists, fishermen, hunters, and boat enthusiasts. Due to the inability to provide long-tem leases, agricultural expansion of Indian Reservation lands had come to a standstill. In 1962, Congress granted the right to make 99-year non-agricultural leases of Indian Reservation lands and early in 1963 provided the right to make 25-year agricultural development leases. On June 3, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court decreed that the Colorado River Indian Reservation shall be entitled to enough water to irrigate 107,588 acres of agricultural land.

The Town of Parker officially incorporated as a town in 1948. In 1980, Parker annexed 13,000 acres of non-contiguous land ten miles to the southeast known as Parker South. In May 1982, by initiative petition, voters formed La Paz County from the northern portion of Yuma County. On January 1, 1983, Parker became the county seat for La Paz County.