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William Grandstaff

Biography

United States

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Biography

William Grandstaff (~1830s or 1840s – 1901) was an American cowboy and frontiersman who lived in Ohio before settling in Utah Territory and Colorado. Born into slavery, verified information about Grandstaff's life is sporadic, but he's believed to have served in the Black Brigade of Cincinnati during the Civil War; to have been one of the two first successful non-indigenous settlers of Moab, Utah; and to have been well-respected in his community when he died near Glenwood Springs in 1901. He is the namesake of Moab's Grandstaff Canyon, and in recent years has received renewed attention from historians and artists.

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Wikipedia contributors — original record ↗

Black heritage reference ↗

Biography text · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

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