History & Culture

Petrified Forest National Park protects one of the world’s largest and most vivid concentrations of petrified wood—the fossilized remains of massive conifer trees that lived over 200 million years ago during the Late Triassic Period. Over time, fallen trees were buried by sediment and volcanic ash, and mineral-rich water slowly replaced the organic material with silica, preserving the wood’s structure in stone while adding brilliant reds, yellows, purples, and blues.

Long before it became a national park, the region was home to Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence shows human presence dating back at least 13,000 years, with later habitation by Ancestral Puebloan peoples who built homes, traveled trade routes, and left behind petroglyphs and tools still visible today. In the late 1800s, growing scientific interest—and widespread looting of petrified wood—prompted calls for protection.

The area was first designated Petrified Forest National Monument in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt, one of the earliest sites protected under the Antiquities Act. It was later expanded and officially redesignated as Petrified Forest National Park in 1962, ensuring long-term preservation of both its paleontological treasures and cultural landscapes.