"Scenics - Old Highway 180 and Petrified Wood" by U.S. National Park Service , public domain
![]() | Petrified ForestHistory |
History of Petrified Forest National Park (NP) in Arizona. Published by the National Park Service (NPS).
featured in
![]() | National Parks Pocket Maps | ![]() |
![]() | Arizona Pocket Maps | ![]() |
covered parks
Petrified Forest
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Petrified Forest National Park
Arizona
History
Historic Stage Stop
December 2—Camp 76…Quite a forest of petrified trees was discovered to-day…They are
converted into beautiful specimens of variegated jasper. One trunk was measured ten feet in
diameter, and more than one hundred feet in length….
Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple, 1853
Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple
Explorers and
Pathfinders
Beale’s camels
From Trails to Rails
and Roads
Homesteaders and train trestle
Petrified Forest is a surprising country. The vast grasslands and rolling clay badlands of the
Painted Desert seem deceptively simple, but the history of the region is complex. Crossed
by the invisible line of the 35th Parallel, Petrified Forest is part of a natural corridor, used
by prehistoric people ten thousand years ago and by travelers today. Take a moment to
explore the history of Petrified Forest and perhaps discover your own connection to this
fascinating place.
Standing at the edge of a colorful sea of
badlands and mesas, a Spanish explorer named
the region El Desierto Pintado—the Painted
Desert. No mention was made of petrified
wood, but the Spanish of the 16th through
18th centuries were focused on finding routes
between their colonies along the Rio Grande
and the Pacific Coast. Within Petrified Forest
National Park, Spanish inscriptions have been
discovered from the late 1800s, descendents
of some of the earliest non-American Indian
settlers in the region.
Routes continued to be explored after the
Southwest became part of U.S. territories in
the mid-1800s. U.S. Army Lt. Amiel Whipple,
surveying for a route along the 35th Parallel
passed down a broad sandy wash in the red
badlands of the Painted Desert. Impressed with
the deposits of petrified wood visible along the
banks, Whipple named it Lithodendron (“stone
tree”) Creek, the large wash that bisects the
Wilderness Area of the park today.
Did you know that many of you have been
following the 35th Parallel? Interstate 40 is
only the most recent thoroughfare along this
route. In the late 1800s, settlers and private
stage companies followed this ancient corridor.
Homesteaders developed ranches that took
advantage of the rich grasslands that would
forever after bear the mark of grazing. In 1884,
the Holbrook Times noted: “…The whole
northern portion of the territory seems to be
undergoing a great change…Our plains are
stocked with thousands of cattle, horses and
sheep…” Cattle would graze in Petrified Forest
until the mid-1900s and ranches are some of the
park’s best neighbors.
One of the strangest sights at the edge of the
Painted Desert must have been a camel caravan.
An experienced explorer, E. F. Beale was hired
by the US Government as a civilian contractor
to build a wagon road along the 35th Parallel.
Between 1857 and 1860, Beale made several
trips from his ranch at Fort Tejon, California,
building and improving the road. On his first
journey, Beale was in charge of a government
experiment in desert transport that included
camels and their drivers. While Beale became
convinced of the camels’ value, the government
declared the experiment a failure. The wagon
road lives on, still visible in spots across the
Southwest, part of which is on the National
Register of Historic Places.
While traveling through the park, you will see
a bridge arching over a long stretch of railroad.
The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad laid lines
in this region in the early 1880s, sparking the
founding of many northern Arizona towns,
including Holbrook to the west. Adamana was
the nearest town attached to what was then
called the Chalcedony Forest, providing a
train station, hotels, and tours. The Atchison,
Topeka and Santa Fe Railway took over the
line, eventually becoming today’s Burlington
Northern and Santa Fe Railway. While the
heyday of tourist travel by train is gone, still
more than sixty trains a day pass through
the park.
National Old Trails Highway
Researchers’ Paradise
Paleontologist Charles Camp
Preserve and Protect
The heyday of another travel line is long
past as well, that of Route 66 which was
decommissioned in 1985. Petrified Forest is
the only national park that preserves a section
of the famous road within its boundaries, now
mostly just a whisper through the grasses. Route
66 was developed from part of the original
transcontinental road, the National Old Trails
Highway, which connected many historic trails
from the East to the West Coasts. Route 66 is
better known perhaps due to songs and tales
of the romance of the road. That romance still
continues for many as they follow Interstate 40
across the continent, exploring such places as
Petrified Forest National Park.
Imagine being one of the first scientists to view
the landscape. Geologist Jules Marcou was a
member of the Whipple Expedition of 1853.
He was the first to note that the trees were from
the Triassic—“We are in the middle part of the
Trias.” In 1899, paleobotanist Lester Frank
Ward came to study this natural phenomenon.
His report to the U.S. Geological Survey
extolled the abundance, beauty, and especially
the scientific worth of the petrified wood and
thus promoted the establishment of a park.
In the vast collection of fossils at the Museum
of Paleontology at the University of California
at Berkeley, there is a phytosaur fossil skull with
odd burn marks, discovered near Blue Mesa
by Ynez Mexia in 1919. On its journey back to
the University, the skull was mistaken as trash,
barely escaping the hotel garbage incinerators at
the Grand Canyon. Mexia’s collection of bones
piqued the interest of Miss Annie Alexander,
founder of the Museum. In 1921, Miss
Alexander and her long-time companion, Miss
Louise Kellogg, visited Blue Forest, collecting
the remainder of the phytosaur skull as well
With the influx of tourist and commercial
interest in the petrified wood during the late
19th century, residents of the region became
concerned that this unique resource might
disappear. In 1895, the Arizona Territory
legislature petitioned Congress for the area to
be a national park, a failure but was still a move
towards preservation.
On June 8, 1906, the Antiquities Act was signed
by President Theodore Roosevelt, to preserve
and protect places of scientific importance.
Petrified Forest was one of the first places set
aside as a national monument through the use
of this Act on December 8, 1906.
First superintendent Charles
“White Mountain”Smith and wife,
writer Dama Margaret Smith
www.nps.gov/pefo
Between 1934 and 1942, the Civilian
Conservation Corps helped improve the park,
working on such projects as building facilities,
roads, and trails. During this time, a section of
the red part of the Painted Desert was added to
the park. Petrified Forest continued to evolve
over the years, boundaries changing, lands
added. In 1962, Petrified Forest was designated
a national park.
EXPERIENCE YOUR AMERICA
as other specimens. Their pioneering work
came to the attention of paleontologist Charles
Camp, who oversaw excavations over the next
decade at sites that continue to yield valuable
information about Late Triassic life.
At the beginning of the 1900s, archeologist
Walter Hough collected artifacts and conducted
excavations as part of the first professional
archeological expedition in the area. He
identified the importance of sites such as
Puerco Pueblo. The Civil Works Administration
funded surveys of sites in Petrified Forest
during the 1930s by archeologists H. P. Mera
and C.B. Cosgrove. These scientific pioneers
opened the region for many generations
of researchers.
With the signing of the Wilderness Act by
President Lyndon B. Johnson on September
3, 1964, the National Wilderness Preservation
System was established. Six years later, one of
the first wilderness areas in the National Park
System was designated within Petrified Forest
National Park. Wilderness is a place where
natural processes are the primary influences
and human activity is limited.
On December 3, 2004, President George W.
Bush signed the bill authorizing expanded
boundaries for Petrified Forest National
Park. As funds are available, the expansion
will enlarge the park from 93,533 acres to
approximately 218,533 acres, an increase of
125,000 acres. These new lands will provide
more opportunities for exploration and
discovery for future generations.
April 2013