A panel of experts in Utah has recommended keeping the name of a popular hiking spot called Negro Bill canyon after receiving conflicting opinions about whether it is offensive.

The Utah committee on geographic names said on Friday that a lack of consensus from minority groups led to its 8-2 vote on Thursday about a canyon in the eastern city of Moab, the gateway to stunning massive red rock formations.

The local and national branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) told the commission the name was not offensive and preserved the history of a canyon named for black rancher and prospector William Grandstaff, whose cattle grazed there in the 1870s.

Jeanetta Williams, the local president of the NAACP, said the word “negro” may make some people feel uncomfortable but there was nothing wrong with it. Other groups still use “negro” in their names, she said, citing the National Council of Negro Women.

“To sanitize it destroys the history and the background of what it is,” Williams said. “It’s a word we often use in history, it’s in titles ... It’s no more uncomfortable saying the word negro than it is saying African-American or black.”

But the decision drew a strong rebuke from a member of the Utah Martin Luther King Jr Commission, which sent a letter proposing a name change to “relegate such blatant racism to the annals of history”.

“It is inexplicable to me that today in the 21st century that reasonably intelligent people who I know have kindness in their hearts found it acceptable to allow this name to continue to exist,” said Jasen Lee, who said he was speaking for himself and not the entire commission.

The commission said in its letter that the word negro was a “racially offensive descriptor” and that it was time to finally make the change.

“To remove the racially offensive descriptor from the official title of the popular geographic feature would express to the world that Utah has progressed to a place where such flagrant insensitivity is no longer tolerated or acceptable in our community,” it wrote.

After the decision was issued, the commission said in a statement it was disappointed by the move.

The canyon south-east of Salt Lake City and the unique red-rock landscapes in nearby national parks lure tourists from around the world.

Its name has long been debated and a proposed change in 1999 failed after receiving no support from Utah counties and state and federal land management agencies, the state geographic names committee said in a statement.

Spurred by complaints from tourists, the Grand county council voted in January to change the canyon’s name after refusing to do so in 2013 and 2015, said council member Mary McGann.

In September last year, the federal Bureau of Land Management administratively changed the signs at the “Negro Bill” trailhead to read instead “Grandstaff Trailhead”.

The decisions by the county council and the land management prompted the geographic names committee to take up the name change issue. It was difficult for the panel to reach a decision because of the conflicting opinions, said member Dina Blaes.

“It’s really not the committee’s job to pick winners and losers, it’s not our job to decide ‘Oh, you’re more credible or you’re less credible’,” said Blaes, the CEO of the Exoro Group, a public affairs firm and also chair of the state history board. “We did not come to this decision easily.”

Lee, a reporter for the Deseret News and KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, called the lack-of-consensus justification a lame excuse. He said he remembered when he was a boy in the 1970s and people stopped calling black people negroes. “You can’t name something using that descriptor today,” said Lee, 51. “It’s hurtful to people like myself who are of a certain age that they know what this means. It speaks poorly of our state, of which I’m a proud resident.”

The commission’s recommendation next goes to the US board on geographic names, which is expected to make a final decision on canyon’s name later this year.