Who is often called the father of the National Park Service ranger service?

Harry Yount is often called the father of the National Park Service ranger service.

Yount worked as a gamekeeper in Yellowstone National Park and was hired in 1880 to protect wildlife and enforce the park’s prohibition on hunting. His duties also included guiding and escorting visiting officials, making his job an early example of the varied responsibilities later associated with park rangers.

Yount earned a yearly salary of $1,000 from Yellowstone’s $15,000 annual budget. He resigned at the end of 1881, after recognizing that one person could not adequately protect the park’s wildlife and extensive territory. Before leaving, he recommended stationing protection officers at different points throughout Yellowstone.

The National Park Service itself was not created until 1916, so Yount was not technically an employee of the agency. Nevertheless, later National Park Service leaders regarded his Yellowstone work as the beginning of the modern ranger tradition. Horace Albright, the agency’s second director, described Yount as both the “father of the ranger service” and the first national park ranger.