But in many ways, those rangers held a job far more complex than most; they were one of the nation’s first park rangers.
Also known as the Buffalo Soldiers, several hundred of these rangers served as early protectors of Western landscapes while battling racism and prejudice. They’re an indelible part of America’s national park legacy and even passed through the stark canyon country that would eventually become home to Arches and Canyonlands national parks.
From battlefields to the backcountry
The Buffalo Soldiers emerged in 1866, when Congress established six (soon consolidated into four) black regiments: the 9th and 10th Cavalry, and the 24th and 25th Infantry. (Infantry soldiers fight on foot, while cavalry are typically mounted on horses.)
The soldiers served throughout the West, often protecting and overseeing the colonists encroaching into Indigenous homelands. In fact, the Buffalo Soldiers got their moniker from the Cheyenne and Plains Indians, who thought their dark, curly hair resembled the fur between a buffalo’s horns.
And around the turn of the twentieth century, the Buffalo Soldiers tackled an entirely new assignment: that of park ranger. In the summers of 1899, 1903, and 1904 they managed and administered Yosemite and Sequoia national parks in eastern California.
While they encountered some friendliness for boosting the local economy, the 500 or so Buffalo Soldiers also fought racism that often undermined their authority as law enforcement.
Despite these challenges, the Buffalo Soldiers produced the man often considered to be the National Park Service’s first black superintendent: Col. Charles Young, who served as acting military superintendent of Sequoia National Park in 1903.
The soldiers also left a lasting legacy on the parks. They built the first usable road into Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park, and the first trail to the summit of Mt. Whitney. The Buffalo Soldiers also constructed an arboretum in Yosemite that some consider to be the first marked nature trail of the national park system.
A canyon-country connection
Though Buffalo Soldiers are most often associated with California, their history also overlaps with southeastern Utah, home to Arches and Canyonlands parks.
In 1876, the 9th Cavalry had moved to New Mexico and Colorado, assigned to protect white settlers there from the existing Indigenous communities. In 1878, the cavalry embarked on a three-month patrol across western Colorado and eastern Utah.
It was the same year the town of La Sal gained a post office. Around that time, too, surveyor Ferdinand Dickert created township lines in Grand County and the future location of Moab.
The 9th Cavalry’s patrol aimed to support surveyors who were marking the Colorado-Utah boundary, according to Lloyd Pierson’s article in the 1996-7 edition of Moab’s Canyon Legacy journal.
In October, 1878, a group of 30 troopers and 150 horses accompanied the surveying party through southeastern Utah. After traveling north from Dry Valley, the party stayed a night in Spanish Valley at an old Mormon fort before passing through what is now Moab. They then crossed the Colorado River, skirting just west of what is now Arches National Park, before winding north and back east to Colorado.
While the history of the Buffalo Soldiers in Utah has garnered scant attention — Pierson noted that it “received no notice in the oral and written histories of the region” — that’s beginning to change.
A new historic trail honoring the history of Buffalo Soldiers in Utah is being established by the Utah State Historic Preservation Office and Sema Hadithi, a Salt Lake City-based Black heritage and culture organization.
The 565-mile driving route, called the Buffalo Soldier Trail, features stops in Moab and seven other locations across Utah. Each stop will eventually have a wayside marker commemorating the soldiers who eventually became the nation’s first Black park rangers.
Honor Black history & support inclusive access
To honor Juneteenth, learn more about National Park Service sites dedicated to Black history.
To ensure national parks remain open and accessible to all, consider supporting Friends of Arches and Canyonlands Parks’ youth engagement program. By connecting young people from both the local community and the region to the parks, the program inspires the next generation with the beauty and significance of these landscapes—helping ensure our parks remain places of discovery, belonging, and stewardship for all Americans.
