Rainbow Forest Museum

Rainbow Forest Museum is a compact paleontology museum and visitor center in the historic Rainbow Forest Complex near Petrified Forest’s southern entrance. If this is your first stop, come in for the park orientation and fossil displays before heading out along the park road. The museum is small enough that many visitors spend about half an hour inside; pair it with a nearby walk if you want to make a longer stop.

The exhibits focus on the park’s ancient life, with skeletons of prehistoric animals and displays about petrified wood. Look for the historic diorama made at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1930s. It is still part of the collection, and gives the museum a feel of its own early years rather than a brand-new visitor center.

This stone building started as the park’s administration building. Its exhibit room first welcomed visitors on December 28, 1931, when Rainbow Forest was the heart of the original national monument. The building predates the Civilian Conservation Corps, which was established in 1933, so it was not a CCC project.

The complex provides access to Giant Logs, Long Logs, and Agate House trails; Giant Logs is the easy pairing if you want to see petrified wood outdoors after the exhibits. The bookstore and gift shop carry limited snacks rather than a full meal, and a picnic pavilion is nearby. The facility has public flush restrooms, drinking water and a bottle-filling station, and is listed as wheelchair accessible.