Petrified Sea Gardens

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. 12 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1902.

From the record

“Petrified Sea Gardens, also once known as Ritchie Park, is a National Historic Landmark on Petrified Sea Gardens Road in Saratoga Springs, New York. It preserves a bed of ancient stromatolites in a Cambrian rock layer, which were the first to be recognized and understood for what they are.”
Wikipedia article Petrified Sea Gardens, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 83 National Register listings published here for Saratoga County · listed in 1999 · category: District · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

National Historic Landmark. The highest federal designation, held by about 2,600 places in the country against roughly 100,000 Register listings.
What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. 42 Petrified Gardens Road, Saratoga Springs, 12866
When was it listed? January 1999
Category. district
City. Saratoga Springs city
National Register reference number. 99000631 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1902 to 1989

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 87 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Petrified Sea Gardens, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet covering Petrified Sea Gardens, surveyed 1902

Fires near this property

335 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 335 fires within 5 miles of Petrified Sea Gardens between 1992 and 2020, burning about 346 acres in total. 24 started naturally. 45 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	140
Debris and open burning	52
Arson/incendiarism	45
Natural	24
Smoking	23
Equipment and vehicle use	20
Recreation and ceremony	13
Misuse of fire by a minor	10
Power generation/transmission/distribution	5
Railroad operations and maintenance	3

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 1995	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	New York Forest Rangers	not named
6 September 1995	Smoking	2.0 acres	New York Forest Rangers	not named
5 September 1994	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	New York Forest Rangers	not named
29 September 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
28 September 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
23 September 2020	Equipment and vehicle use	5.0 acres	Fire Department of New York	NA
23 September 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
23 September 2016	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A

Every fire recorded in Saratoga County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 15 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 15 workings within 5 miles of Petrified Sea Gardens: 11 past producers, 3 producers, 1 occurrence. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Limestone, General, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Graphite Products Corp.	Graphite, Sulfur-Pyrite	Past Producer	Metamorphic
Maple Ave Quarry	Dolomite, Quartz	Producer	1925
Unnamed Occurrence	Granite, Garnet	Past Producer	1882, 1925
Melton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Milton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Quarry Switch	Granite	Occurrence	1825, 1882
Pallette Limestone Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Pompa Brothers Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Unnamed Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer	1927, 1975
Hoyt Quarry	Limestone, General	Past Producer	1895, 1975

Every working recorded in Saratoga County

Storms near this property

6 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Saratoga Springs, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 1994 and 1995: 6 thunderstorm wind. The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Saratoga Springs	1 hurt, $5,000	A cold front moved south from Canada into the Saint Lawrence Valley late on the 2nd of June resulting in severe thunderstorms across parts of eastern New York. Thunderstorm winds downed trees and power lines across parts of Madison, Oneida, Chenango, Otsego, and Saratoga Counties. Especially hard hit was the Westerville area in Oneida County where many roads were closed by fallen trees. In Saratoga County trees fell on a home in Wilton causing extensive damage to the home, while a motorcyclist was injured when a large tree limb fell on him in Saratoga Springs.
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Saratoga Springs	$5,000,000	26,1323EST- *,,1400EST,,,0,0,3,0,Urban Flood Northumberland,26,1330EST,,,0,2,0,0,Lightning Wilton,26,1335EST,,,0,0,0,0,Hail (1.75) Greenfield,26,1340EST,,,0,0,0,0,Hail (1.75) Greenfield Center,26,1340EST,,,0,0,5,0,Thunderstorm Winds N Portion,26,1358EST,,,0,0,6,0,Thunderstorm Winds
June 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Saratoga Springs	$50,000	no account filed
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Saratoga Springs	$5,000	no account filed
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Saratoga Springs	$2,000	no account filed
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Saratoga Springs	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Saratoga County

Maps showing this location

12 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1902 USGS Saratoga quadrangle1:62500 - 9 printings
1934 USGS Saratoga Springs quadrangle1:24000
1942 USGS Saratoga quadrangle1:62500 - 2 printings
1947 USGS Saratoga quadrangle1:62500 - 3 printings
1949 USGS Saratoga quadrangle1:62500
1950 USGS Glens Falls quadrangle1:250000
1956 USGS Glens Falls quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1959 USGS Glens Falls quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1964 USGS Glens Falls quadrangle1:250000
1967 USGS Saratoga Springs quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
1986 USGS Glens Falls quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings
1989 USGS Glens Falls quadrangle1:100000

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Drinkhall, The	2.5 miles	1974
Gideon Putnam Burying Ground	2.7 miles	2003
Franklin Square Historic District	2.8 miles	1973
Hiram Charles Todd House	2.8 miles	1972
United Methodist Church	2.9 miles	1979
Broadway Historic District (Boundary Increase II)	2.9 miles	1994

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 99000631 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Saratoga County	All 83 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.