Brief Administrative History - Petrified Forest National Park (U.S. National Park Service) A park administrative history explains how the park was conceived and established and how it has been administered up to the present. It focuses on the history of the park as a park, to include the history of various park programs and activities. The history of the event, movement, or person that a historical park commemorates need be addressed only to the extent that it affected the establishment of the park and its administration.—National Park Service Administrative History: A Guide, NPS 2004. 1853: Lieutenant Amiel Whipple, during a government expedition to find a route for the railroad along the 35th Parallel, was the first to document petrified wood that would one day be included within Petrified Forest National Park. His expedition artist/naturalist, Balduin Möllhausen, was also the first to publish an account of the expedition with illustrations of the petrified wood.