The Big Stump

Geoheritage Highlight!

The Big Stump has been the big attraction at the Florissant fossil beds for 150 years, inspiring generations of people–from early landowners who wanted to share it with the world to the millions who have come to see it. It reveals the geologic heritage of an ancient forest that grew in a volcanic landscape. It stands as an icon for the values of the National Park Service to protect our past heritage for future generations.

 

Still bearing the rusty saws of the attempt to send it to the 1893 World's Fair!

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This is one of the largest fossils in the park, a massive petrified redwood stump 12 feet in diameter. The Big Stump is all that remains of a redwood tree that may have been more than 230 feet (70 meters) tall and 500-1,000 years old when a lahar (volcanic mudflow) buried its base. You can see the lahar deposit directly behind the stump today.

In the late 1800s, local residents excavated the Big Stump and it became an attraction, drawing tourists to the area.

 

A photo of a group of visitors during 1893 at the Big Stump. When this photo was taken, tourists had easy access to collect the shale fossils and petrified wood.

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Early accounts describe the valley as being littered with petrified wood. As word spread, the Florissant area became a popular tourist destination. Exploitation, constant collecting, and thoughtless destruction continued for nearly 100 years. There is no way to assess the damage done or the loss of rare scientific evidence during this period.

Shelters now protect some of the remaining stumps from weathering, and laws strictly prohibit fossil collecting. A variety of conservation methods to stabilize and preserve the stumps have been proposed and tried over the years, and the National Park Service continues to work towards the best solution.

 

A close up of the sawblades still embedded into the Big Stump.

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Before this area was protected, a failed attempt was made to saw the Big Stump into pieces that could be transported to display at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Notice the rusty broken saw blades still embedded in the top of the stump.

 

A brochure from the Pike Petrified Forest, one of several of the privately-owned attractions that existed before the monument.

NPS

For decades, this was a privately-owned attraction that brought thousands of tourists who helped benefit the local economy of Florissant. It was first known as the Coplen Petrified Forest and later as the Colorado Petrified Forest. John Coplen was the brother of homesteader Charlotte Hill, and he developed the site by moving the abandoned train station from Florissant and remodeling it into a lodge in the 1920s. The property later sold to the Singer family, who operated it until it became a national monument.

 

The rock layers behind the big stump denoted by red dashed lines.

NPS/SIP: Mariah Slovacek

Some of the key layers of the Florissant Formation can be seen behind the Big Stump and further up the hill. They reveal the story of a 34-million-year-old stream valley that became flooded to form Lake Florissant below the slopes of a tall volcano. The Big Stump grew along the stream in this ancient valley.

A) Caprock conglomerate unit: remnant of a debris flow that came into the lake
B) Middle shale unit: remnant of the ancient lake containing thousands of insect and plant fossils
C) Lower mudstone unit: lahar (volcanic mudflow) that buried the redwoods growing here, resulting in the preservation of petrified stumps