Toby Wells poses on the stump sold to Walt Disney in 1956.

By Bill Vogrin

Feb. 14, 2012

FLORISSANT, Colo. — This is a crazy story about how Walt Disney, in a 1956 visit to Colorado, wandered into the Petrified Forest and stepped into the middle of a nasty little war between rival tourist attractions.

It includes an eyewitness account of Disney’s wife, Lillian, sitting in the couple’s rented car, honking impatiently for her husband to leave the Pike Petrified Forest as he spontaneously secured the purchase of a 34 million-year-old stump.

And it all comes from a witness to the events: Toby Wells.

I wrote about the affair in a couple of “Side Streets” columns in 2014 for the Colorado Springs Gazette. At the center of the story is a petrified tree stump. And chances are, if you have ever visited Disneyland in California, you probably saw it. Or walked right past it.

Ironically, it stands as the oldest and most authentic attraction in a place devoted to all things make-believe and figments of wild imaginations. 

A man and a dog stand amid three massive petrified redwood tree stumps in Florissant in 1956.

Most park guests are oblivious to this souvenir of an ancient Colorado forest of giant redwood trees that grew upwards of 34 million years ago in an area we now know as Florissant.

But it’s there: a 7 1/2-foot-tall, 5-ton petrified tree stump taken from what is now the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument west of Divide. The 6,000-acre monument was created by an act of Congress on Aug. 20, 1969, to protect one of the world’s richest fossil deposits. Sadly, many of the best fossils were gone by the time Congress stepped in, including the stump that caught Disney’s eye.

Today, that stump sits in Frontierland near the banks of the Rivers of America across from the Golden Horseshoe Saloon. (I’m fighting the urge to write things like: What a goofy place for a petrified tree.) 

Lillian and Walt Disney pose with the petrified redwood tree stump they bought in Florissant in 1956.

The stump is all that remains of a tree scientists say stood 200 feet tall amid a subtropical forest of giant redwoods obliterated in a cataclysmic volcanic eruption that buried the trees in ash. The region flooded and experienced an algae bloom that created perfect conditions for preserving the trees, as well as insects and plants, scientists say.

Anyway, Disney and his wife, Lillian, had stayed at The Broadmoor hotel and had come to see the work of a former Hollywood artist and Disney Studios animator, Arto Monaco, who had designed the Santa’s Workshop/North Pole theme park that opened in June 1956 in Cascade.

During their visit, Disney and Lillian were driving around Teller County and came upon two tourist attractions: the Pike Petrified Forest owned by Jack Baker and the much larger Colorado Petrified Forest next door.

This was the entrance to the Pike Petrified Forest Fossil business owned by Colorado Springs resident Jack Baker from the 1950s until 1968 when the property was acquired and protected as the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Photo was part of the Baker estate and is courtesy Michael Ausec.

My first column about Disney’s visit included a photo of a 12-year-old boy posing on the stump. The column was published Jan. 31, 2014. The next day, I received a phone call.

“Hello, Bill,” said the deep, gravelly voice of an older man on the line. “I’m the 12-year-old boy in the photo you ran today. I’m Toby Wells.”

Toby Wells in 2011

How cool is that?

At the time, Wells was a 69-year-old retired rancher, and he had a great story to tell me.

Wells grew up on a 1,300-acre ranch that included the eastern edge of the fossil beds, which are generally a couple of miles south of Florissant and U.S. Highway 24 in Teller County. And he said it was not uncommon to find fossils of insects, plants and fish in the rock around the area.

“We had some fossil outcroppings on our ranch,” Wells said.

For a couple of summers, Wells worked as a tour guide at the 73-acre Pike Petrified Forest. On the evening of July 11, 1956, he was getting ready to close up when a fancy car drove up.

“He was a very distinguished man,” Wells recalled. “They were driving a 1955 Chevy, turquoise and white, two-tone.

“He said: ‘Can I tour the forest?’ I said: ‘No. It’s getting dark.’ He said: ‘How about a small tour.’ And I said: ‘I’ll still have to charge you 35 cents.’ And he said OK.”

The guest ledger from the Pike Petrified Forest contained the signature of Walt Disney, Los Angeles, dated July 11, 1956. The Hollywood legend visited the forest, toured it and bought a 34-million-year-old stump that was shipped to his Disneyland theme park where it remains on display in Frontierland. Photo courtesy Micheal Ausec.

After the tour, the man’s wife became impatient, honking and calling for him to leave. The man asked Wells about buying “a small specimen.” Wells said he told him there were a lot of souvenirs in the gift shop.

“He said: ‘No, I want something bigger. Like that stump,’ ” Wells said, referring to a 5-ton petrified Redwood stump that stood 7 1/2-feet tall.

Wells said he’d have to talk to the owner, Baker, and he asked the man his name.

“He said ‘Walt Disney’ and I about fell over backwards,” Wells said with a laugh. “It blew me away.”

This was the July 1956 letter of confirmation sent by Walt Disney to John "Jack" Baker, a Colorado Springs resident and owner of the Pike Petrified Forest near Florissant. On July 11, 1956, Disney visited the forest, toured it and bought a 34-million-year-old stump that was shipped to his Disneyland theme park where it remains on display in Frontierland.

Disney quickly completed the sale, paying $1,650 for the ancient artifact, and left with Lillian for Colorado Springs.

“I never saw him again,” Wells said.

This photo from the estate of former Colorado Springs resident Jack Baker shows men loading a petrified redwood tree stump into a truck for shipment to Disneyland in July 1956. Baker owned the Pike Petrified Forest Fossil business. Photo courtesy Michael Ausec.

Almost immediately Baker and a crew dug up the stump, used a crane to hoist it out and then trucked it straight to Disneyland where it remains on display in Frontierland, propped up near the Golden Horseshoe Saloon.

An employee of the Pike Petrified Forest works to load a petrified redwood tree stump for delivery to Disneyland in California after it was purchased by Walt Disney in 1956.

Disney’s visit and purchase became big news and the photo of Wells sitting on the stump first appeared in The Gazette Telegraph, he said.

The Disney visit fueled bitterness between Baker and his competition, the much larger Colorado Petrified Forest next door. Wells told me how Baker enraged the competition by building an entrance road and erecting a grand gateway right next to its driveway.

The feud turned violent when Baker was caught spreading nails along the entrance of the Colorado Petrified Forest, Wells said. As he drove away in his Chevy Nomad station wagon, shots were fired, striking Baker.

“Then he put up big, obnoxious signs advertising the ‘best stumps here’ and that kind of thing,” Wells said.

This story was confirmed by Michael Ausec, an antiques, gem and fossil dealer from Willamette Valley, Oregon, who grew up in Colorado Springs and was a personal friend of Baker. Ausec bought Baker’s estate after he died in 1994 and has spent years selling Florissant fossils online since.

“Jack still had the Nomad in his driveway on South Institute,” the street where he lived in Colorado Springs, Ausec said. “It still had bullet holes in it.”

One of the bullets hit Baker in the stomach and could not be removed, causing him chronic problems the remainder of his life, Ausec said.

Wells also had a firsthand account of the fight between landowners and the National Park Service after efforts began to create the monument.

His family was forced to sell 73 acres to the park service for inclusion in the monument, including the family home.

“They took everything where we lived,” he said. “Our house and everything. It was upsetting that all of a sudden you had to leave and move out of your home.”

In fact, developers from Colorado Springs were offering a lot of money to ranchers in Florissant for their fossil bed property. One group paid $450,000 for 1,300 acres in 1969 as a bill was moving through Congress to create the monument.

That purchase led to a dramatic series of moves, including court injunctions and trials and a near confrontation between environmentalists and bulldozers that was averted at the last minute.

The whole saga is included in a fascinating book, “Saved in Time – The Fight to Establish Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado” by Estella Leopold and Herbert Meyer. It’s available online and gives amazing details about the hundreds of new insect species discovered entombed in the rock by scientists who explored the area as early as 1873. It also describes efforts to preserve the fossil beds, dating to 1891.

And it gives a blow-by-blow of the landmark legal battle that resulted in creation of the monument.

I was intrigued by the complaints of scientists as early as the 1890s about the “disappearing forest” and the amount of petrified wood and fossils being carted away. There’s interesting detail about failed efforts to saw petrified stumps into pieces so trains could haul them off. And how the Colorado Midland Railroad advertised special trains for tourists who wanted to collect fossils.

The thought of all the history contained in those souvenirs that was sold for pennies makes me shake my head. And it’s why I’m glad the area is now protected.

And it’s why I’d like to see some of the best fossils returned for display.

At least Disney put his petrified tree stump on display for millions of folks to enjoy. Or, as in my case, walk past in oblivion on my way to the next roller coaster.

This petrified redwood tree stump is an estimated 34 million years old and is on display in Disneyland in California. It was purchased by Walt Disney in July 1956 from what is now the Florissant Fossil Bed National Monument in Teller County. Photo is courtesy of the Disney Parks.