Painted Desert Inn is a historic complex in Petrified Forest National Park, in Apache County, eastern Arizona. It is located off Interstate 40 and near the original alignment of historic U.S. Route 66, overlooking the Painted Desert.
The Painted Desert Community Complex is the administrative center of Petrified Forest National Park. The community center includes administrative facilities, utility structures and National Park Service employee housing, planned by architects Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander as part of the Mission 66 park facilities improvement program. Work on the community began in 1961 and was completed by 1965.
This bridge was created as softer rocks eroded around a large petrified log, leaving a lengthy bridge between bluffs. The early park service built several stone supports to keep the bridge from collapsing, greatly diminishing the beauty of this natural wonder.
Rainbow Forest Museum provides exhibits of petrified wood, fossils, and displays of prehistoric animals as well as information, book sales, and restrooms. Timeless Impressions, a free orientation film about the park, is shown continuously throughout the day.
About this list
Attractions are associated with the nearest recognisable destination rather than by municipal boundary, so a place just outside Petrified Forest National Park still appears here if that is how visitors reach it. None of these publish an official visitor count, so they are ranked on public interest and tourism significance. Each page says so.
Near Petrified Forest National Park
The closest attractions outside Petrified Forest National Park, measured from the places listed above rather than from a town centre nothing occupies.
