Greetings family, friends and neighbors. An accidentally discovered natural wonder has been attracting visitor's to Calistoga, California for more than a century. Today's Historic Snippet is about Charley Petrified's ancient Redwood Forest..........Bill
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Historic Snippets
PETRIFIED CHARLEY
Charles Evans came across a remarkable hollow stone log while raking the pasture on his Northern California homestead. The year was 1870 and he soon uncovered an array of fallen trees in what appeared to be the remains of an ancient stone forest. Charles would soon be known locally as “Petrified Charley”. His curiosity led to a number of paleontologists and paleobotanists visiting the property to learn more about the unique natural wonder, as well as scores of turn-of-the century tourists and notable individuals including horticulturist Luther Burbank and author Robert Louis Stevenson. In subsequent years it was determined that the petrified forest was the result of a violent volcanic explosion 3.4 million years ago of an extinct volcano that we now know as Mt. St. Helena (not to be confused by Washington States Mt. St, Helens). The horrific blast leveled the forest of prehistoric redwood trees seven miles south/west and buried them in thick layers of volcanic ash. Mineral rich water percolated through the ashy deposits saturating the organic tissue with silica for thousands of years creating petrified three dimensional fossils and one of the finest examples of an ancient forest in the world In 1912 Ollie Bockee purchased the property for $14,000, as well as additional surrounding land, accumulating 845 acres. She created gravel paths with informative signage and two years later opened the Petrified Forest as a tourist attraction just seventy miles from the Bay Area. Motoring guests were offered guided tours of the sixty five foot long “The Queen”, “The Pit Tree” and imposing “The Giant” for $.50, and offered the opportunity to purchase petrified wood, leaf fossils and souvenir postcards.
The Bokee family has owned and operated The Petrified Forest for more than a century and continue to entice inquisitive visitors to the authentic, historic and educational Wine Country attraction accidentally uncovered by Petrified Charley.
-Bill 4/25
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