"Yessir," the traveler drawled, "Away out there in the petrified forest everything goes on the same as usual. The petrified birds sit in their petrified nests and hatch their petrified young from petrified eggs."
Treasury of American Folklore
Among America's national parks, Petrified Forest has existed as something of an anomaly. Americans value their parks as scenic wonderlands, and places like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon set the standards for our definition of national parks. Monumental scenery, varied recreational opportunities, extensive campgrounds, and even resort hotels like El Tovar and the Old Faithful Inn all contribute to shaping the American vision of these national vacationlands. When the first Park Service Director, Stephen Mather, described these great national parks as the country's "crown jewels," he chose a particularly appropriate phrase.
The country's first parks owed their existence, at least in part, to an enduring sense of cultural anxiety. Nineteenth-century Americans worried about the new nation's seemingly meager artistic contributions in comparison to those of Europe. Particularly distressing was the lack of remnants of a glorious past; the United States could boast of no castles or cathedrals, no monuments of Western Civilization. "The shadowy grandeurs of the past," to use Washington Irving's often quoted phrase, were missing from the New World. For these cultural traditions Americans substituted monumental scenery, particularly after the Civil War, as they became increasingly familiar with the American West. The Yosemite Valley, the Sierra Redwoods, and Yellowstone's geysers and canyons, among other scenic wonders, became this country's emblems of national identity. The idea of national parks originated in response to this cultural anxiety, historian Alfred Runte has noted. From the beginning, Americans valued their national parks largely for their scenic impact. 1
Such attributes as monumental scenery do not adequately describe Petrified Forest, which became a park only after a long tutelage as a national monument-a separate category of scientific, historical, and archaeological sites established by the 1906 Antiquities Act. Its history has not always paralleled that of other parks. From its inception in 1906, it was large for a national monument (only a few others embraced more acreage), and, because of its location only a few miles from the Santa Fe Railroad's main line, it was easily accessible to travelers. Railroads often supported the establishment of national parks and hastened to serve them. Petrified Forest was among the few monuments to enjoy the benefit of transcontinental rail service. Later, Route 66 would bring even more tourists, and their numbers would reach nearly a million annually by the 1980s.
The ancient stone trees, which towered over Triassic swamplands more than 200 million years ago, suffered at the hands of visitors; protecting them was the sole reason for establishing Petrified Forest National Monument in 1906. Though the responsibility was an important one, it was for a long time interpreted and executed very narrowly. Even as paleontologists and paleobotanists unearthed from the Triassic Chinle Formation around Petrified Forest more and more remains of ancient plants and animals, Washington officials retained a single-minded obsession with preventing vandalism and theft of petrified wood. Attempts to develop a thoughtful educational or interpretive framework for this unique landscape were sporadic. Congress did not authorize the National Park Service until 1916, and even then the agency did not address interpretation systematically for years. The exception was at Yosemite, where Joseph Grinnell of the University of California's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology pioneered such activities as early as 1914.
The need to educate visitors was particularly pronounced at scientific sites like Petrified Forest. These monuments, like archaeological and historical ones, embody an essentially educational commitment that reflects the discoveries of field research and the ingenuity of interpretive specialists. Nowadays we acknowledge that parks comprise more than simple recreational sites. As Paul Tilden, editor of National Parks Magazine, has observed, they also are "units of a national educational institution which offers informal classes in the architecture and history of the earth." Similarly, geologist William Matthews describes parks as "outdoor geological laboratories" that provide visitors with an opportunity to see how natural processes have sculpted the landscape. 2
Geologic processes shaped the magnificent scenery at Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, and other places, but visitors easily take the landscape for granted, never considering the physical forces that produced the spectacular terrain around them. People often overlook interpretive programs and are fully content to take in the scenic vistas. For decades this simple truth operated to the detriment of Petrified Forest. Visitors often delighted in the subtle hues of the Painted Desert and enjoyed wandering among the giant petrified logs; but they really had no framework for understanding the phenomena they witnessed, nor did they perceive the role of national monuments among the country's reserves. Consequently, visitors too easily categorized Petrified Forest as merely a curiosity or a collection of oddities.
Beginning in 1916, a number of national monuments-Lassen Peak, Grand Canyon, Bryce, Mukuntuweap (to become Zion), Mt. Olympus, and others-made a quick transition to national parks. All ofthem possessed obvious scenic attributes, and their original establishment as monuments represented a temporary status along the way to their elevation to parks. Petrified Forest did not then make the transition, even after the addition of the Painted Desert in 1932 gave it a unique scenic dimension. For several decades, the reserve remained something ofa Park Service stepchild-scenic, larger, and more heavily visited than its sister monuments and some parks, but lacking the dramatic scenery that would make it park material.
As a result, for much of its history Petrified Forest existed on the administrative fringes of the Interior Department's responsibilities. Most of the national monuments shared the same fate, but because of its size, the number of visitors, and the vulnerability of its scientific sites, Petrified Forest demanded more attention. Washington's focus invariably was on the parks, and when civilian administrators proved inept, the Park Service resorted to the army-as in Yosemite and Yellowstone prior to World War I. For the monuments, though, Washington often relied on voluntary custodians, eventually paying them a nominal one dollar a month to prevent theft and vandalism.
The administrative history of Petrified Forest in the early twentieth century is a case study of the Interior Department's relationship with the national monuments and the problems of relying on volunteers or very poorly paid custodians. Near Petrified Forest the little railroad town of Adamana boasted the Forest Hotel as the gateway to the reserve, and its owners typically took on the responsibilities of monument custodians. From the 1890s through the 1920s, Petrified Forest was a one-man operation-the domain of whomever owned the Forest Hotel at the time. These custodians were expected to patrol the various deposits of petrified logs, preventing theft and deterring vandalism. Often these men also repaired roads, built bridges, constructed rudimentary shelters, and installed primitive water systems, all the while receiving little direction or compensation from officials in Washington. For custodians at Petrified Forest, it was usually Frank Pinkley, superintendent of the Southwestern National Monuments, who provided encouragement and instructions and often interceded on their behalf with Park Service administrators in Washington. Pinkley was the only contact that many custodians ever had with the agency's administrative hierarchy until the 1930s.
With the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs in the 1930s, the national monuments attained a degree of parity with the parks and received more attention from Washington. Petrified Forest benefited immensely from federal remodeling and refurbishing, thanks to the Civil Works Administration, the Public Works Administration, and the Civilian Conservation Corps. By the end of the decade, Park Service officials acclaimed it as the country's outstanding national monument. A full-time naturalist joined its meager staff and immediately initiated paleontological research projects and planned exhibits. Scientific work had gone on there-albeit intermittently-during the previous decades and had resulted in important discoveries. Scientists actually were piecing together the components of the Triassic environment that existed in the area 200 million years earlier. In so doing they were gradually defining a crucial time in the earth's history.
The role of scientists was not unique to Petrified Forest. Since the 1860s, scientists had explored and surveyed the mountains of the American West, and their illustrations and descriptions shaped the popular image of national parks. At Yosemite, Josiah Whitney, Clarence King, and John Muir not only identified the impact of glaciers in shaping Yosemite Valley, they also developed the concept of the geological sublime that gave meaning to the region's spectacular scenery. Similarly, much of our appreciation ofYellowstone and the Grand Canyon rests on the exploration and descriptions of John Wesley Powell, Clarence Dutton, and Ferdinand V. Hayden.
Scientific discovery also constitutes an essential ingredient of the national park experience at Petrified Forest, and it defines the reserve's unique characteristic. The huge petrified trees are novel remnants of an earlier time, and it is precisely that ancient environment-the time of thecodont reptiles and early dinosaurs-that is most important. Translating the scientific information into interpretive experiences that will capture the interest of visitors has been a critical responsibility for the Park Service at the reserve, but it has often proved difficult. Without some appreciation of this ancient environment, visitors have found Petrified Forest lacking in specific focus. Too often, causal tourists have viewed the place as a colorful roadside attraction-one of a great many along Route 66. In reality, the panoramas of the Painted Desert and the "forests" of stone trees are remnants of a 200-million-year-old ecosystem. The raw materials for an expansive science park were there to be employed, but Park Service personnel were slow to develop them.
Petrified Forest made the transition from monument to national park in 1962, more than a half-century after its founding. The new title recognized the reserve's expanded and upgraded facilities, the scenic landscape of the Painted Desert, and the vastly increased number of visitors-nearly three-quarters of a million-who arrived annually by Route 66. Scientific discoveries continued throughout the 19605 and 1970s, and a new visitor center allowed for more sophisticated interpretive exhibits. Finally, in the 1980s, park officials actively encouraged research by paleontologists, paleobotanists, and archaeologists, among others. Their work culminated in assembling a scientific advisory committee and ultimately in plans for an expanded scientific and interpretive center at the park-one designed to draw visitors into the unique world of scientific discovery in the Triassic Chinle Formation.
Park officials now propose to expand Petrified Forest's boundaries to include the remainder of the globally Significant Chinle outcrop that cuts across the park. This is far more than a simple land acquisition, for they envision a program to introduce visitors to the geology, archaeology, and history of the park. A new management plan sets forth a combination of research center and visitor center overlooking the Painted Desert. The natural backdrop itself is an exhibit of the natural processes that shaped the area, and this panorama demonstrates how the contemporary landscape reflects events that occurred 200 million years ago. The close relationship between research and interpretation for visitors recognizes Petrified Forest's origins as a scientific site and provides a sense of continuity with the past.
Today, the petrified trees remain to provide a glimpse of an earlier environment-one that seemingly bears no relationship to the arid high plateau that surrounds the park. Modern visitors can now, in fact, "visit the Triassic," as the park's advertising proclaims, and carry home not purloined specimens of petrified wood but a perception of the area's ancient environment and perhaps an appreciation of man's humble place in the realm of the earth's history.
Petrified Forest still does not quite fit the popular image of national parks as expansive vacationlands located in places of scenic grandeur, graced with resort hotels and rustic campgrounds, and offering diverse recreational opportunities. Instead, Petrified Forest has been a daylight park for several decades; visitors stay but a few hours before resuming their journeys along Interstate Highway 40.
Although lacking some of the characteristics of its grand and scenic sister parks, it nevertheless remains an important environmental site that preserves 30 million years of the earth's history. In this respect, Petrified Forest contributes a unique dimension to the national park idea. To evoke an image in contemporary popular culture, it is a Triassic Park that exhibits and interprets an ecosystem that flourished in the region when the earliest dinosaurs made their appearance. Then, the stone trees that now lie scattered and broken on Arizona's high desert stood alongside lakes, swamps, and wandering streams that were home to phytosaurs, primitive fishes, and small dinosaurs like Coelophysis. Here was an ancient wilderness that modern man has come to know only gradually as erosion has freed its fossil plants and animals from the encasing rock matrix.
Petrified Forest requires visitors to confront geologic time-" deep time," as John McPhee labels it in Basin and Range. To think in terms of millions, or hundreds of millions, of years is a novel concept for most people. Few ever truly comprehend deep time; at best their minds can only measure it. Visitors to Petrified Forest National Park encounter the fossil remains of an ecosystem that sustained a diverse population of plants and animals hundreds of millions of years ago. A human lifetime, in contrast, is reduced to "a brevity that is too inhibiting to think about," McPhee notes. Nonetheless, he concludes that "a sense of geologic time is the most important thing to suggest to a nongeologist: the slow rate of geologic processes, centimeters per year, with huge effects, if continued for enough years."3
In proposing the expansion of this science park, the National Park Service has taken on a substantial challenge, hoping that visitors will choose a park experience that is educational rather than recreational. Over the past few decades, the definition of national parks has broadened considerably to embrace a variety of new reserves, and that diversity can also accommodate parks that preserve and interpret geological time and other natural phenomena. Such sites will never replace the crown jewels of Yosemite, Yellowstone, and other scenic places; they simply add another dimension to our understanding of the earth's history and changing environment.