In October 1973, Mary Jane McDowell arrived at Mesa Verde National Park as its first female law enforcement ranger. Neither she nor the park had chosen the assignment, and the park's chief ranger believed women should not be rangers; at first he hardly gave her work. So she found ways to train herself, with help from ranger Tom Townley.
Ranger Mary Jane McDowell with Socks the horse. NPS History Collection, HFCA 2997.
Into the Park Service
Known as Janey, and later Jane, McDowell earned a BA in Recreation and Park Administration from Memphis State University in December 1972, having taken the Civil Service exam that March. The National Park Service hired her through its ranger intake training program:
| When | Where |
|---|---|
| January 1973, three months | "Introduction to park operations" at the Horace M. Albright Training Center, Grand Canyon — one of ten women in the class |
| April 1973 | George Williams College near Chicago, working with children at an NPS site on Lake Geneva |
| May–September 1973 | An "urban experience" with the NPS in Washington, D.C. |
| October 1973 | Mesa Verde National Park |
Proving herself
In March 1975 she completed 14 weeks at the Consolidated Law Enforcement Center in Washington, D.C., graduating fifth in a class of 50. That June a new, more open-minded chief ranger arrived at Mesa Verde and put her in charge of training the seasonal law enforcement rangers.
After an explosion at Mount Rushmore's visitor center on June 27, 1975, she spent two weeks there in July as the only woman among 24 park rangers and U.S. Park Police officers sent to reinforce the park over the Fourth of July. In February 1976, ahead of the Bicentennial, the Rocky Mountain Region made the team a "special activities group"; the FBI trained its members in Denver in disarming people, marksmanship and explosive devices, and they returned to Mount Rushmore in July 1976.
Yellowstone
In August 1976 she moved to Yellowstone, where the experience was the opposite of Mesa Verde's: her supervisor, Jerry Mernin, welcomed her and supported her career. She was first sub-district ranger at Grant Village — and district fire chief for structural fires — then served at the South Entrance. She patrolled the backcountry, worked search and rescue, investigated traffic accidents, staffed a fire lookout and responded to emergencies including bear attacks.
She left the Park Service around 1980 to earn a master's degree. Her story appeared in Gloria Skurzynski's 1981 book Safeguarding the Land: Women at Work in Parks, Forests, and Rangelands.
Her papers
The Mary Jane McDowell Papers (HFCA 2997), which she donated to the NPS History Collection at Harpers Ferry Center, hold photographs of her at work in Yellowstone, a newspaper clipping on her arrival at Mesa Verde, and Skurzynski's manuscript chapter and a first edition of the book, which also tells the story of Marianna Young, a Grand Teton ranger-naturalist who survived a grizzly attack in Yellowstone. The collection dates from 1973–1981 and 2016, is open to research by appointment, and has not been digitized; her nametag and ranger badge are also in the collection.
Sources
Based on "Guide to the Mary Jane McDowell Papers," NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry Center, National Park Service, processed and described by Nancy Russell, February 2025; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
In these publicationsYellowstone National ParkMesa Verde National Park
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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