Death on duty or in the line of duty should be honored. So determined Jeff Ohlfs, a retired Chief Ranger, in compiling an honor roll of National Park Service dead.

Today, on the 104th anniversary of the National Park Service, NPSHistory.com is pleased to release the NPS Employee Memorial. Truly a labor of love, Ohlfs has spent more than 30 years researching and honoring these individuals.

The memorial can be viewed at this site.

Ohlfs was at Hot Springs National Park when he heard about the 1927 murder of park policeman James Cary.  Ohlfs became concerned about remembering all NPS employees who gave their lives to the preservation of our nation's parks. In finalizing this Memorial, Ohlfs reached out to NPSHistory.com, which agreed to be its permanent host. This Memorial honors and remembers the 260 employees of the National Park Service who have paid the ultimate sacrifice — having died on duty or in the line of duty.

The listings include the names of those who died, which park they worked in, and brief details of how they died. Heart attacks, automotible accidents, heavy equipment accidents, falling snags, and boating accidents frequently appear as the cause of death. Among those listed:

• Richard N. Ruckels, Veron Estes Kaiser, and John Phillip Baker, snowplow operators in Yellowstone, who died June 21, 1947, from exposure associated with an unusual snowstorm after they got stuck while they were trying to rescue stranded motorists on the Beartooth Plateau just east of the park.
• Roger Wolcott Toll, Yellowstone's superintendent at the time, and George Melendez Wright, the Park Service's chief of wildlife, died together in a car accident in New Mexico on February 25, 1936, while touring prospective park sites.
• Earl L. Rupe, a roads and trails labor leadman at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, was killed March 17, 1951, by a premature dynamite blast while he was building a ramp to replace a stairway leading to Devils Den.
• Gale Hill Wilcox, a district ranger in Grand Teton National Park, died March 9, 1960, from exposure after trying to rescue John Clinton Fonda, an assistant district ranger, who broke through ice and fell into the Snake River while trying to cross it on skis. Fonda drowned.

The most recent addition was of Calvin John Kangas, a 67-year-old trail crew volunteer, who died July 15, 2019, while working on the North Country National Scenic Trail.