The Bureau of Land Management has renamed a trailhead northeast of Moab, Utah, with a more culturally sensitive moniker.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the agency replaced signs along the Colorado River corridor northeast of Moab that referred to “Negro Bill” Trailhead with “Grandstaff.” That is the actual last name of a half-black, half-American Indian settler who herded cattle in a side canyon of the river there in the 1870s. The Tribune reports William Grandstaff was likely a former slave who came West after the Civil War. The trail in question leads 2 miles along what is still called “Negro Bill Canyon.” An effort is under way with the Utah chapter of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to rename that as well.
