OTE, Author at Oregon Travel Information Council

Hanley Farm Willow

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Audio Tours, Heritage Tree Details |

Salix babylonica
In 1860, Martha Hanley planted this weeping willow to commemorate the birth of her son. The willow cutting was obtained from the pioneer Luelling Nursery in the Willamette Valley and delivered by Martha’s friend Kit Kearney, an express rider, who stuck it in a potato to keep it from drying out. The tree flourished and the Hanley farmstead eventually became know as “The Willows.”

Tree facts

Approx. height: 30′
Planted in: 1860
Circumference: …

Hager Grove Pear Tree

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Details |

Pyrus communis
This pear tree is one of the oldest and largest in Oregon and was planted by the pioneer Munkre family who came over the Oregon Trail in 1846. It is the lone survivor of a large pear orchard later known as Hager Grove and a popular creek side picnic and camping area. Still in good health and bearing fruit, it is so large that it is often mistaken for …

Governor McCall Maple

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Audio Tours, Heritage Tree Details |

Acer palmatum
This Greenleaf Japanese Maple was planted by Governor Tom McCall in late 1973 or early 1974 during his second term of office. McCall is remembered for many enviornmental achievements, such as the “Beach Bill” which granted the state government the power to zone Oregon’s beaches, thus protecting them from private development, and the “Bottle Bill” which was the nation’s first mandatory bottle-deposit law, designed to decrease litter in Oregon.

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Gov. Withycombe Giant Sequoia

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Details |

Sequoia giganteum
James Withycombe served as Oregon’s governor from 1914 until his death in 1919. He was one of only two foreign-born Oregon governors (at the time this marker was installed). Born in Tavistock, England, he came to Oregon with his parents in 1871 at 17 years of age. He purchased a farm two years later and married Isabel Carpenter on June 5, 1875. He planted this redwood on their wedding …

Giant Spruce of Cape Perpetua

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Details |

Picea sitchensis
Half a century before Christopher Columbus sailed to the America’s, a tiny Sitka spruce began its life nourished by a nurse log on the Oregon coast. Today, it is the largest and oldest tree in the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area of the Siuslaw National Forest. Nearly 600 years old, it stands over 185 feet tall and has a circumference of 40 feet.
Nearby the tree, indigenous people dwelled at the …

Frank Lockyear Memorial Cedar Grove

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Details |

Thuja plicata
This grove of western red cedars was planted in 1934, the first of hundreds of tree plantings organized by Lockyear in a life dedicated to reforestation.
Lockyear lead Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and other youth organizations in making many major tree plantings throughout the Pacific Northwest. In 1973 he founded the non-profit ReTree International to plant trees worldwide and to involve and educate youth about the importance of trees to …

Foster Lilac

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Audio Tours, Heritage Tree Details |

Syringa vulgaris
The original start of this lilac was brought from Maine to Oregon in 1843 by Mary Charlotte Foster, wife of Philip Foster, partner with Sam Barlow on the Barlow Road. The Fosters sailed around Cape Horn and Mary Charlotte planted the lilac immediately upon her arrival in Oregon City. She moved it five times, replanting it at each of her homes. It was planted in its current location in …

Ewing Young Oak

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Details |

Quercus garryana
Ewing Young, fur trapper and trader in the Southwest and Mexico, turned settler in the Chehalem Valley in 1834. He was the first American settler in the Oregon Country who was independent of aid from the Hudson’s Bay Company. His death on February 15, 1841, left considerable property and no heirs. This problem created the necessity to form a civil government, which directly led two years later to the …

Dr. Charles Caples House Orchard

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Details |

Joseph Caples with his three children crossed the Oregon Trail in 1844 and in 1846 claimed 320 acres on the site that is now Columbia City. Joseph built his log cabin from timber cut and stacked by the Hudson Bay Company who had intended to build a fort on the site. Charles, the oldest child, later studied medicine in Portland and became the first doctor in Columbia County taking a …

Dosch Yellow Bellflower Apple

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 in Heritage Tree Audio Tours, Heritage Tree Details |

Malus domestica
Reverend Albert Kelly planted an orchard here on his homestead in 1850. The trees were bought from the pioneer Luelling and Meek Nursery in Milwaukie- the first grafted fruit tree nursery on the west coast.
Colonel Henry E. Dosch purchased the property in 1886-87 and restored the health of the neglected orchard. In 1976, the Home Orchard Society declared this tree the oldest, living, grafted apple tree in the Western …

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