NPS/Marge Post

The petrified wood walls of Agate House were partially reconstructed in the 1930s.

Petrified wood was used by the ancestral Puebloan people for tools like arrowheads, knives and scrapers. But they also used it as building material. Agate House is a small, eight-room pueblo once built with blocks of petrified wood laid in a clay mortar.

Partially reconstructed in the 1930s, Agate House is located on top of a small hill within the Rainbow Forest. Pottery and other artifacts date the pueblo to the Pueblo III period - the only Pueblo III site excavated in the park. It is thought that this pueblo may have only been occupied for a short period of time because of the limited number of artifacts found and the absence of a traditional kiva.

Would you like to visit Agate House? The Agate House Trail runs 1 mile from the Rainbow Forest Museum parking lot. It can be combined with the Longs Logs Trail for a 2.5 mile roundtrip hike. A shade shelter at the junction of these two trails offers the only shade as you cross the badlands and petrified wood scattered landscape. Water, sun protection, and comfortable shoes are strongly recommended.