PETRIFIED FOREST WOOD COMPANY

The story of the Petrified Forest Wood Co. a unique Arizona based industry.

180 MILLION YEARS AGO in Arizona, during what geologists term the Triassic Period, or "Age of Dinosaurs," there stood many forests of huge trees towering hundreds of feet in the air. Dinosaurs stalked these ancient forests, where man was yet to tread.

The universe was still young then and its titanic forces were more active, often changing the surface of the Earth. Volcanic eruptions and shifting continental plates were creating mountains and seas where none had been, and then destroying them.

The life of one forest in Northern Arizona was irrevocably changed by such an upheaval. Mighty floodwaters felled all of its trees and catastrophic showers of volcanic ash entombed them. Yet, even buried as it was, the forest continued to be while a strange transformation occurred. Reminiscent of the alchemists of man, nature turned wood into precious stone using just the right blend of circumstance, pigment, and time. So perfect was the replacement that each fossil log was an exact replica, even down to the "age rings," knots, and bark. Scientists of today term the process petrification and the resulting stone quartz, which is one of the hardest and most chemically resistant materials known. Petrified wood will outlast either steel or glass.

For the entombed and petrified Arizona Forest, the years passed slowly into decades, into millennia, then ages. Oceans formed atop the buried forest, waned, and were formed anew. The dinosaurs passed into history. But the Earth was not yet finished its restlessness produced violent earthquakes which cracked the rock strata and petrified logs. Ground waters bled through the cracks, leaving new fillings of mineral crystals.

Eventually the Age of Glaciers descended upon the continents. The oceans of the Earth receded and erosion cut deeply into the rock layers. In only a few million years the ancient Triassic Forest of Northern Arizona was exhumed to greet the dawn of man.

Although petrified wood of sorts is found in other states, only Arizona witnessed the bizarre sequence of natural geological events which produced an entire fossilized forest of huge rainbow colored quartz logs. It was for this reason that Theodore Roosevelt established the Petrified Forest National Park in 1906 in Northern Arizona as a "great outdoor museum for the enjoyment and wonder of all the people.

The Petrified Forest Wood Company has mineral rights to huge tracts of land adjoining the Petrified Forest, and has discovered an extensive deposit on these lands of the precious stone. Sufficient quantities have already been mined to develop and serve a world market.

The New Mexico and Arizona Land Company was incorporated on June 18, 1908 in the Territory of Arizona. The Company was originally formed to take title to land grants allotted to the old Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. Subsequently, the land company was acquired by the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company which is today widely known as the "Frisco Railroad." The land company currently owns in fee 585,000 acres of Arizona and New Mexico land and has mineral rights to an additional 768,000 acres. Formerly its estate stretched across what is now the Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona. Theodore Roosevelt recognized the unique natural wonders of the Petrified Forest and moved, to establish it as a National Monument in 1906. In a series of land exchanges after this date, the United States Government acquired nearly all properties of the New Mexico and Arizona Land Company having large quantities of petrified woods on the surface of the land. Relatively recently, however, the land company has discovered that buried beneath its lands near the Petrified Forest National Park is a vast extension of the same ancient fossilized forest that attracts around one million tourists annually to this part of Arizona. On March 4, 1974 the land company organized a subsidiary company to mine, manufacture and market worldwide high quality lapidary products from petrified wood. The subsidiary is named the Petrified Forest Wood Company and is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.

Petrified wood from Arizona is considered a semi-precious gemstone due largely to its brilliant arrays of rainbow colors quite unlike the dull farm-yard varieties characteristic of other States. Moreover, the degree of fossil preservation in this Arizona petrified wood is unmatched. Growth rings counting the years of the fossil's life may be found still easily discernible in the siliceous replacement. The artwork of both living nature and geologic process marks these petrifications. To better bring forth the natural beauty of this material, the Petrified Forest Wood Company first cuts the specimens with diamond-studded blades and then grinds and buffs it with carborundum powders until a permanent shine is obtained. Being harder than steel or even glass, petrified wood retains its polished surface indefinitely and is not subject to common household scratching. The decorative uses for petrified wood run the gamut from fine "picture wood" jewelry to massive coffee tables. In our synthetic modern world few products can claim an antiquity of 180 million years. It is the goal of the Petrified Forest Wood Company to retrieve these relic reminders of a lost landscape and make them available to fill all the civilized niches of our day.

Note: Please address all communications to the Petrified Forest Wood Company, Camel Square, Suite 140B, 4350 East Camelback Road, Phoenix, Arizona 85018.

Arizonaís Backbone Country

Across central Arizona, the Mogollon Rim transverses the state, east and west, in a broken escarpment that is two hundred miles long. Geologists define an escarpment as a line of cliffs formed by the faulting or fracturing of the earth's crust. Commonly known as Arizona's mighty backbone, the Rim Country is dominated by forbidding crags and dense forests rising in places to more than 7,000 feet above sea level. North and south of the rim are many of the state's best known and most used sports and recreational areas. They are recognized by names such as Sedona, Oak Creek, San Francisco Peaks, Snow Bowl, Tonto Basin, Woods Canyon, Heber, Show Low, Hannigan Meadows and at the far eastern end of the rim... Mogollon, New Mexico.

RIGHT: South of Petrified Forest National Park the land slopes up and away to the precipitous 7,000 foot high Mogollon Rim. PETER BLOOMER West of Petrified Forest lie the 900 year old cinder cones and volcanic flows of Sunset Crater National Monument. JOSEF MUENCH