The Painted Desert / Petrified Forest east of Holbrook AZ

I googled my old memories of 1961 working on the buildings at the Petrified Forest.

Rasmussen Construction of Provo Utah was the general contractor and all of the sub-contractors were from Utah.
I was working with my uncles with Johnson Electric from Orem Utah.

I arrived on the scene with just the barest of leveling done by Johnny from Tropic Utah and his D-8 Cat that was always breaking down. We helped survey, stake, and string where all the buildings were going to be and started digging trenches for the plumbing and electrical pipes.

The plumber was a crazy little son of a gun! Keith Batty stood about 5'-5." I remember being in the grocery store in Holbrook and seeing his wife at the checkout stand when Keith came charging up with a couple of cases of beer yelling "the hell with the kids (they didn't have any) and their milk. I need my beer!"

My strongest memories are of driving the 25 miles from Holbrook to and from the job on old US-66 (now demolished) with the sun sitting on my hood ornament both ways. Sun glasses didn't cut it. I needed a welding hood.



Let's zoom in a little closer. Yes, still pretty much as I remember it from 56 years ago.


approaching on the road.


On the south end is the fire department and road maintenance building, middle is the
Public theater and museum.


There were three Rasmussen brothers. Dean - the general Contractor, Mark - a lapidarist and rock lover with Reva his wife who made excellent squash-blossom silver necklaces, and Dwayne. Dwayne got in a fight one Saturday night. The guy he was fighting kept knocking Dwayne down until his arms got so tired he couldn't lift them any more. That is when Dwayne beat him up. Dean told me that Dwayne came staggering into the bar all bloody and bruised shouting "I won, I won."

There was their father - "Shorts" Rasmussen with a whiskey bottle in his hand. "I'll drink down to my finger." Glug, glug, glug. "I meant the finger on the bottom."

The rest of their crew were children and assorted relatives.

One day Dean (head Contractor) told the crew that if they could get a huge slab they had prepared poured and finished that day, he would provide the drinks. I left when my 10 hours were up, the last cement truck had left, and my electrical pipes still in place, but the rest of the crew were still going strong.

I returned the next morning to find the site littered with beer and whiskey bottles. Not another soul in sight.
The first of them to return was a week later. That big push saved a lot of . . . ?
Beyond me, but they seemed happy.

A couple of weeks later Dean got drunk, ran off the road and tore out a huge section of barbed wire and drug a long section of it onto the job site attached to his 1960 El Camino pickup.



The Redheaded Brick Mason was EXTRAORDINARY! His name was Floyd. He had two masons working for him and two hod carriers - one for him, one for the other two. Well actually, BOTH hoddies were tending him while he laid 2-3 cinder blocks for every one the other two masons laid! Fast AND accurate!
The first wall he laid up was blown over by the wind that night,
Gene, the Job inspector went to bat for him and got re-bar added into the job specs and a hefty addition to his bid price.

Another outstanding worker was a BYU athlete (Most likely a football lineman) named Rodger. I saw him tip a 55 gallon barrel of diesel fuel onto his knees and heave it into the back of a pickup! He was one powerful dude!

South entrance.


Mid entrance.


That theater had a bearing on the direction my life would go.
There was a two foot wall section between two doors. The blueprints called for it to contain an air duct and electrical switches for the lights, the roll-up door, the roll down movie screen, and the movie projector.

it was a battle, but we finally got everything working.
When AI went back to school I decided I wanted to be an architect. My architect advisor asked why AI had made that choice. I explained that because of my construction experience my prints wouldn't have conundrums like that in them. He told me that was not an architects problem. The men out in the field would solve them.
That switched off my architectural ambitions.

North end is dedicated to the rangers homes, trailer houses and storage.


The job didn't end well. Dean got into a fight with Gene, the Government job inspector.

THAT IS A NO-NO!

From then on, they would pour a slab. Next day Gene would tap the surface with a hammer, the surface would peel, giving him the RIGHT to reject the slab, have them tear it out and pour it over several times.
When they were ready to plaster the home inside walls, He insisted they install the windows first. Surprise surprise. The plaster scratched the glass. All the windows had to be torn out and replaced.

one of the windows being removed broke, slid down and sliced one of the men's palm open. I drove him into Holbrook to have the wound stitched shut.

Rasmussen Construction Co went belly up. After the Loving is done . . .

I'm starting a tour of the park. Who knows, I may even finish it.



First stop - Tiponi Point.










In addition to newspaper Rock, there is nearby Lithodendron Wash.

I thank you for your posting of some "side-info" regarding the Petrified Forest in AZ. I love to visit the area and never get away without buying at least 100#'s of pet-wood.

Thesse logs appear to still have the bark on them.
I think the brown material in the lower right corner is the material they were buried in.

I just stumbled onto this website from 2014 that has information about 1961 at the park - AND information about changes and additions after I left. I don't remember the Filling Station, and the entrance Pay Booth has been moved down the road.

It appeared to be a treasure trove of photos of the area from the time, but the links are broken.

www.nps.gov/pefo/learn/historyculture/pdcc.htm