The Story of America's Fight to Protect The Petrified Forest
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- Опубліковано 15 лют 2023
- Welcome to View Master Travels, an adventure that takes you back in time to the late 1940s.
I’ve a vast collection of vintage 3D reels, each containing seven 3D photos of various places around the world, and I’m visiting those places to see how they've changed.
This time, we’re looking at Reel A3632, one of several View Masters of the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, and I’ll find each of the pictures to see what's there now and learn some history along the way.
The Petrified Forest area consists of two regions in Arizona, the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, where people have lived for over 8,000 years, but it was mostly abandoned around 600 years ago. The Painted Desert was explored by the Spanish in 1540 when they were searching for the seven cities of gold. The area became famous after the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, where samples of petrified wood were on display for the first time.
A 1946 Route 66 guidebook mentioned an Inn and Museum located two miles north of the route at the painted desert, and after driving into the park, I found the Painted Desert Inn. Originally built as a lunchroom, bar, and hotel in the early 1900s, the building was purchased by the US government in 1936 and redesigned as a museum and restaurant in the Pueblo Revival style.
Though it has undergone many changes over the years, including stints as a Harvey House and a ranger station, it remains a must-visit for history buffs and travelers alike.
The View Master pictures aren't always what they seem, as the landscape is changing rapidly. Many of the famous log pedestals have collapsed due to erosion and famous views, like Eagles Beak, are long gone. However, visitors can still enjoy the park's beauty, as the petrified wood can be seen in several "forests" throughout the park. The park road also takes visitors through all of them.
The Blue Mesa trail offers a breathtaking and alien landscape with blue hills and petrified wood fragments, which the hiker calls their favorite part of the park. As I followed the trail, I eventually stumbled upon a distinctive striped hill, realizing I was standing in the same spot as the View Master picture taken years ago.
The Petrified Forest was difficult to reach in the 1800s, but a train station named Adamana was built nearby in 1896, making it easier for tourists to visit. Al Stevenson and James Donohue forged some of the original tourist trails in the early 1900s, taking people on horse and wagon tours through the park. With the introduction of Route 66, tourism increased greatly and several tourist attractions were built, including the Stone Tree House hotel, Lion Farm, and Painted Desert Tower. A northern loop road was also created to make it easier for hotel customers to see the painted desert.
In the 1950s, officials began planning to upgrade the Petrified Forest from a national monument to a national park, but there were still tourist traps along Route 66, such as the Lion Farm. To bypass these attractions, officials suggested re-routing the road, which ultimately led to the closure of the Lion Farm and other businesses. The land became cheaper, and the park service purchased it, allowing the area to become a National Park in 1962.
The only stretch of original Route 66 protected within a national park is found within the Petrified Forest, preserved since the road was rerouted in the 1960s. As you enter the park, you can see remnants of the old road, including telephone poles and garbage from car windows. This unique feature has remained untouched and protected for over 60 years.
It’s surprising how quickly history gets lost to time - today, the remains of the Lion Farm are just as hard to find as pueblo artifacts; the old Eagles Beak is completely gone; and only the last few log pedestals remain.
From the name “Petrified Forest” I assumed things were frozen in time forever - but it turns out that these sights are changing fast.
Sound Effect Credits:
Cafeteria sound: freesound.org/s/507276/
Wind in the grass: freesound.org/s/665151/
Campsite ambience: freesound.org/s/429982/
Outdoor crowd: freesound.org/s/642585/
Car passing: freesound.org/s/583291/
Icons used in educational film segment:
noun-dinosaur-5473715
noun-tree-5494250
When I was REALLY young, I thought that the Petrified Forest was a bunch of frightened trees and plants..
That’s funny 😊
What a cool.idea! I remember these view masters being given away at flea markets and thrift shops in the 70s and even now..who would have thought that these cheesy family vacation photos could be used as reference material.decades later!
And there are so many of them, you can “visit” so many interesting places with them 😊
I was 16 years old . It was 1975...The colors were delicate like a palette of eye shadows. The petrified trees were haunting reminders of ages long ago.
Awesome, thanks for commenting
Honestly, amazing job! Got me engage all along the ride!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.
Fabulous idea. Thanks for sharing with us. We're enjoying it very much.
Thanks, glad you like them.
I work at a crystal shop in Arizona. I’ve memorized the information you given here and I use it when taking about our petrified wood slices. One tourist asked me to repeat it so he could record it. I always let them know about View Master Travels and give you a plug. Thank you so much, I’m an Arizona native and never knew about the history of the petrified forest.
That’s awesome, thanks so much. 😊
@@viewmastertravels5114 P.S. I always plug your channel!
@MareShoop Awesome! Thanks.
My ex husband and I drove the entire length of Route 66 for our honeymoon in 2009. This was a great video and brought back lots of memories
I'm glad - it was a really fun trip for us.
Just call me a "petrified old boomer" who saw the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest a few times as a child way back in the sixties while on our families summer vacations. I recall it well and good. We also went to Carlsbad Caverns and The Grand Canyon on that either 1 or 2 month long school vacation times when we'd travel, too. Some years we'd see Yosemite or Yellowstone N.P..
Hard to take the kiddies on long, extended summer vacations across the country at leisure anymore, unless you have money and simply home school. Maine says to say "Hello", so "hello!".
Thank you very much for sharing 'vintage' compared with 'newage'. Both make a pretty picture together! We learn about time and the earth by being able to compare photos. Both yourself and that traveler have helped us see what we do by looking at the two pictures side-by-side.
Those picture reels could have been another option when you got your film developed, by the way. People who had those small viewers got them and others got slides if they had a slide projector. I liked slide projectors the best. Anyways, it wasn't just photographs society could get developed back then.
Old 'petrified humans' like me can also be 'libraries of forgotten information', well, if people care to read what's on our shelves anyways. The state of Maine just tapped me on the shoulder and said to say, "Hello" for it again, and that it now "misses you". I get the hint. Forgive me, please(if ya must), I never could just 'tweet' out a comment, I'd starve. But I better hang up the receiver now before this call costs an arm and a leg, you know, long distance and all. Um, you DID tell the UA-cam operator YOU'D accept the collect call, right?(😁"bee/fun/knee"😁, always leave them wanting more, never less, I always say!)
Awesome comment- times sure have changed
@@viewmastertravels5114 Thank ya! Videoing the cloudy afternoon sky at the moment. I'm still silly that way. I'm going to watch your Los Angeles video later on tonight. I'm from there... sorta. I love reminiscing and seeing vintage photos. I'm thankful that you have these and are sharing them with us. The people who took them would be amazed their photos lasted 'forever' now that they've been "internetted".
Good thing we came along to save a few.
Right 😊
I loved those viewmasters when I was young , it was all we had for high quality , optical quality imaging . The closest thing to UA-cam or TikTok that we had back then . You bring back so many fond memories of me and the family always going back to look at them and sharing it with those who never saw one.
Thanks!
So happy that youtube put this in as a recommendation, and what a beauty it is! Thank you for sharing these pictures, with their info, and for pausing long enough for the viewer to pause for a moment and just look at the scenery. Yes, I can pause my device, but the beauty of the picture is “marred” by the pause icon. Safe travels! : )
Thanks, glad you like them 😊
You do such a great job at researching the videos you make; they are thoroughly enjoying and educational.
What makes you think that the VM photographer was lazy though? If it was Lad Goodman or Rupert Leach, both of those guys were energetic and loved to hike.
Keep up the good work!
Good point 😊. It’s become a bit of an inside joke on these trips because my wife and I are always surprised how close some of these locations are together. Some times we’ll wander around for an hour looking for a photo location and then we’ll realize it was right behind us all along 😊
@View Master Travels ...my father was William B Gruber
Really? Wow, that’s amazing. Did he take the pictures from some of the reels I’ve done? Reproducing these pictures has really put me in the mindset of the photographer - especially when you realize you’re standing in exactly the same spot 70 years later it kind of gives you chills. And figuring out the logic of which places to go and in what order makes you realize you’re doing the same thought process as the photographer did.
@@moviebuff6490 Yes, I can absolutely confirm this!
@Marco H ..yes, Daddy took many of the early photos, but I'm not sure exactly which ones. I know that Rupert Leach did a lot of the southwest ones.
Fascinating once again. The research and knowledge really makes these vids special, thanks. The ambient sounds added really make watching these on headphones a real pleasure.
Thanks - I like doing those parts, trying to guess what the scenes might have sounded like is fun.
Glad I found this channel!
Awesome!
We just went to the Petrified Forest. I watched several videos before going, but yours was just suggested to me. I found it to be the best video for the NP yet! Fabulous channel idea, merging history and travel.
Awesome! Thanks!
Just stumbled on your channel today. Really enjoyed this post.
Looking forward to seeing some more.
Nice job!
Thanks! There's lots more to watch :-)
Great idea, and an excellent use of your resources. I do (or did; finances prevented anything as extensive as your collection, much less the means to travel) something vaguely like this by collecting travel memoirs between about 1870 to 1890 as written by ordinary people and generally published by subscription, mostly to friends and neighbours -- think Mark Twain's _Innocents Abroad_ , but written by people who weren't professional writers or travelers; and then I would look for old stereographs from the same period that would show the same places as the illustrations in those books. Comparing these illustrations with the generally more exact photographic images enhances the experience of both book and stereograph. And my having done this in turn enhances my enjoyment of what you're doing now, so -- thank you for starting this channel!
That sounds fascinating - old stereographs are very interesting - but seemed quite overwhelming to collect. It must take quite a concerted effort to find the cards you were looking for.
@@viewmastertravels5114 There are annual photography fairs where vintage photographs are sold, and bins of stereographs can (or at least could; it's been some years) show up at antique fairs as well. I know that, once I get started, dealers were delighted to send me their catalogues. I suspect the Internet would make buying stereographs even easier today. So, not all that difficult, just potentially expensive. I no longer collect, alas. Life interfered, so to speak, and I had to give that up.
I do still have (I thiink, I hope) my old childhood Viewmaster reels, too (I think about a dozen), plus the viewer, but the mechanism on the latter has become rather creaky. I never purposefully collected the reels, though.
Over 4k views but only 124 likes inc mine? What a disgrace! Dunno about anyone else but I have often wished I could see 'then and now' photos - and you have done it and it was so interesting to see. You deserve much more moral support and def more likes.
Thanks for the support 😊
@@viewmastertravels5114 And Thank YOU for your video. It's the least I can do and I'm sure you will receive much more support over time.
Great idea for a video.
Thanks!
Excellent!
In 1962, Mom drove Route 66 with my brother and I. A nine year old can find petroglyphs on almost all the little mountains we clinbed up. Lots of MesoAmericans with plenty of time! We also bought the Viewamaster reels.
You could get a 3D effect by moving your video rapidly side to side about eye distance, works very well with something nearby along the frame.
You could also get 3D effect from the ViewMaster and Stereograph by making a "wiggle" gif that loops, and in the video, repeating the two images about a quarter of a second each.
You must be urban... a two mile hike isn't much.... but it does take over an hour if it's 4 miles round trip.
Mountain bike?
I look forward to checking out the other videos. 🎉
Great memories 😊. The big issue with hiking to the agate house and back was that the park closes, so you don’t have as much time there as you’d like.
15:44 No comments about the petroglyph depicting a human figure being picked up or impaled by the beak of a giant bird?
Those petroglyphs are crazy, you could do a whole episode just on them 😊
@@viewmastertravels5114 Thank goodness someone noticed! I think you are right - they are most intriguing. Wish I could see more. Will have to do a search methinks! Thank you.
The idea that the parks have to be strictly government-owned is not completely true if you check into the Keweenaw National Historic Park you'll find that it covers a whole lot of sites that are privately owned or owned by local government units
That’s interesting, I always wondered how many parks were like that.
What you are seeing is the remnants of the flood of Noah!
Wrong part of the world.😅
4:33. I wonder what the story is about the swastika on the roof ?
I looked that up - pre Nazi’s it was a common Native American symbol - the Nazi’s hadn’t taken it yet.
How the trees fell could have been the result of a massive explosion from an unknown source the created the Great North American Gulf ( the gulf of mexico ).
Could be - but keep in mind the continents were in different places when the trees fell.
Even the govt got greedy and used the old mansion to harvest petrified wood . Rebuilt it with mud ? WTF.
Burn them out, a old real estate gem lol
I know, kind of crazy
"Or maybe use our insurance policy... hey, Louie? Deh nevah know it wadn't lightening that took out a vacant joint that was goin' bankrupt city on a speedy rail! Quick, go git deh matches and I'll siphon out a gallon outta deh Hudson and we'll soon be on our way to Vegas, baby!"
Then stone trees are not trees they are dried up river beds
Like driftwood
Honestly, amazing job! Got me engage all along the ride!
Glad you enjoyed it!