{"id":3491,"slug":"ginkgo-petrified-forest-vantage-washington","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["In November 1932, Professor George Beck of Central Washington College and four students found a 'beautiful, soft, opaline' log two feet across, half-buried in Ryegrass Coulee. Under the microscope it was something no one had ever seen: the first complete specimen of petrified ginkgo wood — a living fossil tree preserved in stone, from a forest that had stood here fifteen million years ago.","The forest had been buried by the Columbia River basalt floods, then half-exposed by the cataclysmic Ice Age floods that scoured the whole region fifteen thousand years ago. The Wanapum had known it for centuries — they carved tools from the petrified wood and left petroglyph panels along the Columbia. Highway crews found the logs in 1927; Beck's find made it a park by 1935."]},{"heading":"Trees of stone","paragraphs":["The CCC built the Trailside Museum in the 1930s; today the Trees of Stone trail winds past more than twenty petrified logs still lying where the floods left them. When Wanapum Dam flooded the Columbia shore in 1963, the tribe's petroglyphs were cut from the rock and salvaged — replicas now stand at the interpretive center overlooking the river, the originals' last view preserved.","The park holds one of the most diverse fossil forests in North America — more than thirty species turned to stone, including the ginkgo that made it famous, Washington's state gem being petrified wood itself."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Ginkgo Petrified Forest is the archive's stone-forest file — a Miocene woodland turned to gem, exposed by the greatest floods on the continent, sacred to the Wanapum before it was science to anyone else. The documented ginkgo find is the record; the salvaged petroglyphs are the lore of a shoreline now underwater.","A forest turned to stone keeps its trees — the file's suggestion being that the Wanapum knew the stone forest first, and the park is still catching up."]}],"name":"Ginkgo Petrified Forest","aliases":[],"type":"SITE","type_label":"Site","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","LEGEND_SITE","GEOLOGY","NATURAL"],"groups":["legends"],"desc":"The petrified forest—where the ginkgos turned to stone.","full_desc":"A site in Vantage, Washington, Ginkgo Petrified Forest is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The petrified forest—where the ginkgos turned to stone. HauntHunt files it with geology, natural sites and local folklore. The file’s recurring figure goes by a name, not a description: the forest. The dossier holds 2 reported claims, 1 legend and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Vantage","county":null,"state":"Washington","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":46.945232,"lon":-119.99215,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"PNW2 batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":3790,"type":"LEGEND","description":"The forest’s lore is documented. Ginkgo Petrified Forest in Vantage, Washington carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. The legend does what legends do — it explains the place in a way the records can't.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"The forest","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Ginkgo Petrified Forest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_Petrified_Forest_State_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":3791,"type":"GEOLOGICAL","description":"The petrification is documented geology. The reports at Ginkgo Petrified Forest are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. Media accounts carried the story further than the evidence ever did. 'Ginkgo Petrified Forest' carries the account. It's the kind of claim that outlives debunkings — too many witnesses, too few explanations.","evidence":"MEDIA_REPORTED","evidence_label":"Media reported","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Ginkgo Petrified Forest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_Petrified_Forest_State_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The forest is documented. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. 'Ginkgo Petrified Forest' documents the entry. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Ginkgo Petrified Forest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_Petrified_Forest_State_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"The forest’s lore is documented. The site in Vantage, Washington gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. Sources including 'Ginkgo Petrified Forest' keep the claim in circulation. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Ginkgo Petrified Forest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_Petrified_Forest_State_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[{"name":"The forest","claimed_identity":"The forest","verified":null,"summary":"The forest’s lore is documented. Ginkgo Petrified Forest in Vantage, Washington carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. The account appears in 'Ginkgo Petrified Forest'. A named spirit outlasts an anonymous one; the file's name is The forest. The lore keeps its witness. The lore keeps its witness.","behavior":"The forest’s lore is documented.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Ginkgo Petrified Forest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_Petrified_Forest_State_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Ginkgo Petrified Forest","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_Petrified_Forest_State_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_Petrified_Forest_State_Park","desc":"State park in Washington state, United States","extract":"Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park is a geologic preserve and public recreation area covering 7,124-acre (2,883 ha) on the western shoreline of the Columbia River's Wanapum Reservoir at Vantage, Washington. Petrified wood was discovered in the region in the early 1930s, which led to creation of the state park as a national historic preserve. Over 50 species are found petrified at the site, including ginkgo, sweetgum, redwood, Douglas-fir, walnut, spruce, elm, maple, horse chestnut, cottonwood, magnolia, madrone, sassafras, yew, and witch hazel.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ca/PetrifiedWoodGPFSP.jpg/960px-PetrifiedWoodGPFSP.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":86,"lat":46.9021826,"lon":-119.9897836},"counts":{"claims":2,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}