In one scene a herd of deer cross a plain. Near that a stork stands on attenuated legs and dangles what appears to be a baby in its bill. This is doubtless the earliest picturization of a stork’s visit. In another place a long line of human figures clasp their hands and drag one another up a steep incline. In the heart of the Reservation lies a mesa almost entirely surrounded by a steep cliff that has broken and fallen in ruins. On the huge boulders that have rolled to the desert below, there are pages and pages of history could one but read what is so plainly written. One figure stands alone disconsolately weeping. Quite monstrous tears are falling from his eyes, and just beneath his weeping figure a six inch bowl was found. Although broken in half by the passage of time with its destructive elements the piece of pottery, at least two thousand years old, was carefully restored and has an honored place in the Government Museum.

Courtesy C. J. Smith

Graven deep into the stone in sheltered places thousands of years ago, these pictures are a lasting monument to the people who roamed this region in the gone-by centuries.

On almost every mesa are the remains of ancient dwellings. There are arrowmaker’s chips and fragments of pottery, and crude colored beads that may have delighted some wee maiden with their brilliance. The pottery shows two distinct varieties, the finger-nail decorations covering the blackened bowls which seem to have served as cooking utensils, and the finer pottery, on which the black and white tracings are as startlingly vivid today, as they were so many, many centuries ago when they were drawn by the day-dreaming housewife as she sat in the sun and painted the fanciful designs.

Historical

By virtue of the Gadsden Purchase, at the close of the Mexican War, what is now Arizona came into possession of the United States. At this date, 1848, there was no record of the Petrified Forest ever having been seen by white men. In 1853 Lieut. Whipple, engaged in surveying a railroad route to the Pacific, discovered the deposits lying to the north of the present Reservation. He did not, however, discover the deposits of petrified wood south of Adamana, and there is no definite record of just when, and by whom, these “forests” were first seen. John Muir claims to have discovered the Blue Forest.

An Indian legend tells that one of their Goddesses wandered into the place which is now the Petrified Forest. She was hungry, cold and exhausted. When she saw the hundreds of logs lying around she was delighted and managed to kill a rabbit with a club, expecting to have a delicious supper. When she attempted to kindle a fire to cook her kill, the logs were wet and would not burn. In anger and her disappointment, she cursed the spot and turned the logs into stone that they might never burn.

As travel became more plentiful over the Santa Fe Railroad and across country, great amounts of the fossilized wood were carried away or destroyed, and the people of the Territory became alarmed about their unprotected treasure. In 1895 the assembly sent this Memorial to Congress.

House Memorial No. 4

TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

We, your memorialists, the eighteenth legislative assembly of Arizona, beg leave to represent to your honorable bodies:

FIRST: That there is in the northern part of this Territory, lying within the borders of Apache County, near the Town of Holbrook, a wonderful deposit of petrified wood commonly called the “Petrified Forest” or “Chalcedony Park”. This deposit, or forest, is unequalled for its extent, the size of the trees and the beauty and great variety of coloring found in the logs.

The country ten miles square is covered by the trunks of trees, some of which measure over two hundred feet in length and from seven to ten feet in diameter.

Ruthless curiosity seekers are destroying these huge trees and logs by blasting them in pieces in search of crystals, which are found in the center of many of them, while carloads of the limbs and smaller pieces are being shipped away to be ground up for various purposes.

SECOND: Believing that this wonderful deposit should be kept inviolate, that future generations may enjoy its beauties and study one of the most curious and interesting effects of nature’s forces,

We, your memorialists, most respectfully request that the Commissioner of the General Land Office be directed to withdraw from entry all public lands covered by this forest until a Commission, or officer appointed by your honorable body, may investigate and report to you upon the advisability of taking this forest under the charge of the General Government and making a National Park or Reservation of it. * * *

J. H. Carpenter, SPEAKER A. J. Doran, PRESIDENT

Filed in the office of the Secretary of the Territory of Arizona this 11th day of February A. D. 1895, at 11 a. m.