Grandstaff Canyon (called Nigger Bill Canyon from the late 19th century until the 1960s, and Negro Bill Canyon until 2017) is a

canyon A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

in southern Grand County,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, United States. It is part of the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...

watershed. Its stream flows directly into the main channel of the Colorado River within Moab Canyon.

Description

A trailhead which gives hiking access into the canyon is located directly adjacent to

Utah State Route 128 State Route 128 (SR-128) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Utah. The entire length of the highway has been designated the Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway, as part of the Utah Scenic Byways program. This road also forms part of the ...

(SR‑128). The trailhead is located about east of the junction of SR‑128 and

U.S. Route 191 U.S. Route 191 (US 191) is a spur of U.S. Route 91 that has two branches. The southern branch runs for from Douglas, Arizona on the Mexican border to the southern part of Yellowstone National Park. The northern branch runs for from the north ...

. The

Morning Glory Arch Morning is the period from sunrise to noon. There are no exact times for when morning begins (also true of evening and night) because it can vary according to one's lifestyle and the hours of daylight at each time of year. However, morning strict ...

is located in the canyon about from the trailhead and has a length of .

Naming history

Grandstaff Canyon was named after William Grandstaff, a mixed-race

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...

, who prospected and ran cattle in the desert canyon in the late 1870s with a Canadian trapper named Frenchie. They took joint possession of the abandoned Elk Mountain Mission fort near

Moab Moab ''Mōáb''; Assyrian: 𒈬𒀪𒁀𒀀𒀀 ''Mu'abâ'', 𒈠𒀪𒁀𒀀𒀀 ''Ma'bâ'', 𒈠𒀪𒀊 ''Ma'ab''; Egyptian: 𓈗𓇋𓃀𓅱𓈉 ''Mū'ībū'', name=, group= () is the name of an ancient Levantine kingdom whose territo ...

after 1877, and each controlled part of the Spanish Valley. Grandstaff fled the area in 1881 after being charged with bootlegging whiskey to the

Indians Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

. The canyon was called Nigger Bill Canyon until the 1960s, when the revised name Negro Bill Canyon was adopted. In the wake of the 2015

Charleston church shooting On June 17, 2015, a mass shooting occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Among those people who were killed was the senior past ...

, local councilwoman Mary McGann called for the renaming of the canyon to the more formal Grandstaff Canyon. Although the local NAACP chapter was behind its renaming in the 1960s, they opposed the further change to Grandstaff Canyon.

Jeanetta Williams Jeanetta can refer to: * Jeanetta, Houston, Texas * Jeanetta, given name among variations of Jeanette (given name) Jeanette (or Jeannette, Jeannetta or Jeanetta) is a female name, a diminutive form of the name '' Jeanne''. Other variations are J ...

, president of the Salt Lake City NAACP chapter, insisted that "Negro is an acceptable word" and feared that "If the name changes, it's going to lose its history". However, in 2017 the

U.S. Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geographic names throughout the federal governm ...

voted to have it renamed to Grandstaff Canyon.

References

External links

Excerpts from ''Utah's Favorite Hiking Trails''
{{authority control African-American history of Utah Canyons and gorges of Utah Canyons and gorges of Grand County, Utah Protected areas of Grand County, Utah Bureau of Land Management areas in Utah

Description

Naming history

See also

References

External links