Badges and Uniform Ornamentation of the National Park Service

Workman, R.

From the early days of Yellowstone National Park, there was a need to distinguish the men who would protect the national parks from those who would damage them. The early rangers, such as Harry Yount, did not wear uniforms and may or may not have carried a badge. The first clear reference to badges for rangers relates to their use by Yellowstone park scouts. The 1898 U.S. Department of the Interior badge was evidently the first universal badge to be used by the "forest rangers," as the rangers in Interior's parks as well as forest reserves were then called. From then until the first uniform came into being a decade later, badges were all that identified rangers. The uniform enabled the greater public recognition that was desired. In the beginning, the National Park Service had the trappings of a military unit similar to the U.S. Army, which it replaced in some of the western parks. Materials and ornamentation for the officers (those who were not rangers) were of higher quality than those for the rangers. Officers wore serge instead of heavy wool and gold fill instead of nickel plate or German silver. Patches, or brassards as they were called, were worn on the sleeve to distinguish the various positions. These distinctions came to an end, for the most part, in 1928 when it was decided to raise the ranger in the field to the same level as those in administration. Rangers of the National Park Service have guarded the Nation's parks well over the years, making their mark in the history of this country in the process and as such, deserve recognition.