The Arches area was inhabited later by two different historic groups of Native Americans, the Ute and the Navajo. Utes lived and hunted throughout the park area, and were responsible for driving out the first white settlers in the area as late as the 1850s. Arches was on the northern fringe of the Navajo lands, and although they passed through the area there is no evidence that Navajos lived within the park area.

The Old Spanish Trail passed through the Spanish Valley, where Moab is now located, and crossed the Colorado River just outside the park boundaries, but it is unlikely that many Spaniards ever ventured into the park. Juan Maria de Rivera, a Spanish trader, passed nearby as early as 1765, and by the 1840s the trail was a well-used route from New Mexico to California. Mountain men were known to travel in the area, but the only one known to have entered the present-day park boundaries was the enigmatic Denis Julien, who left an inscription dated 1844 in the Devil's Garden area of the park. The first Mormon explorers entered the Moab area in 1854, and returned to found the Elk Mountain mission the following year; however, they were quickly driven out of the area by the Utes.