Rainbow Forest Complex: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Petrified Forest National Park, National Park Service
Nicholas L and Mardorf C. 2011. Rainbow Forest Complex: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Petrified Forest National Park, National Park Service. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 850116. NPS Intermountain Regional Office. Intermountain Regional Office/CLI Database
The 172 acre Rainbow Forest Complex cultural landscape is on the arid windswept plains of the Colorado Plateau. Located in the extreme south of the park, less than two miles from U.S. 180, Rainbow Forest continues to serve both visitors and park staff. As the site of the most massive and colorful petrified wood in the park, Rainbow Forest has continuously served as a place to facilitate park visitor experiences. For 39 years it served as park headquarters and as such was the most visited destination. Today the Rainbow Forest Visitor Center receives about twenty percent of the visitors to Petrified Forest National Park. It consists of interpretive trails, the visitor center and museum, a concession building, a picnic area, and residential and service areas. It has been known for hundreds of years for its great concentration of petrified wood. Long Logs road responds both to the location of the wood, and to the rolling hills. Small scale features include wrought iron fencing, the Mather memorial, and the freestanding masonry walls and curbing around the parking areas. The spatial organization of Rainbow Forest was determined by four factors: the location of natural features, the accommodation of vehicles, the protection of petrified wood from theft, and separation of use types. The southeastern facing, gentle slope above Jim Camp Wash floodplain is a critical feature that has dictated the development of Rainbow Forest cultural landscape. The necessity to locate services near the most colorful wood in the park left designers with limited options. The vegetation at Rainbow Forest cultural landscape is predominantly native, undisturbed, or rehabilitated. However a large landscape project occurred during the Mission 66 campaign, and the housing area, because of access to water, has trees and exotics not found in other locations. The buildings at Rainbow Forest represent architectural styles from different NPS eras. The original buildings are in the style of Ancestral Puebloan structures, while the CCC era structures both replicated those earlier buildings and represented slightly different styles and masonry techniques. Later development in the 1950s and 1960 was in the International Style. Rainbow Forest is an example of both 1930s and CCC-era NPS design and planning. Layout, architectural styles, and building materials express cultural values, traditions and concerns of these time periods. Vehicular circulation patterns at Rainbow Forest and Long Logs have changed over time to accommodate different vehicle types, to control traffic flow and to limit access to residential areas. Although pedestrian circulation has changed as well, vehicular circulation, focused around the parking area, is clearly dominant. An unused 50,000 gallon water reservoir, and a smaller abandoned water tank, remain as evidence of CCC engineering and construction.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Nicholas, L.; Mardorf, Carrie
- Date of Issue
- 2011-03-08
- Publisher
- NPS Intermountain Regional Office
- Units
- IMR , PEFO
- Keywords
- Archeology, Architecture, Arizona, Boarding House, Business, cabin, Civilian Conservation Corps, Commerce, Communtiy Planning and Development, Concession, Conservation, Engineering, Entertainment, Ethnographic Landscape, exhibit, Government Office, headquarters, Historic Designed Landscape, hotel, hotel, inn, Insitutional Housing, Landscape architecture, Lodge, Mission 66, Museum, Natural area, Navajo County, Period Revivals, Protection of Natural and Cultural Resources, public works, Recreation, Scenic Landscape, The 1930s: Era of Public Works, Traditional Cultural Property