Oldest active park ranger in U.S. retires at 100

The oldest active park ranger in the U.S. is hanging up her Smokey hat at the age of 100. Betty Reid Soskin retired Thursday after more than 15 years at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, the National Park Service announced.

Betty Reid Soskin retired Thursday after more than 15 years at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, the National Park Service announced.

Soskin "spent her last day providing an interpretive program to the public and visiting with coworkers," a Park Service statement said.

She led tours at the park and museum honouring the women who worked in factories during wartime and shared her own experience as a Black woman during the conflict. She worked for the U.S. Air Force in 1942 but quit after learning that "she was employed only because her superiors believed she was white," according to a Park Service biography.

"Being a primary source in the sharing of that history -- my history -- and giving shape to a new national park has been exciting and fulfilling," Soskin said in the Park Service statement. "It has proven to bring meaning to my final years."