Heritage Tree Details

Click the title of each tree to see more details and photos of the trees.

NEW Heritage Tree Hero of the Year Award

The Oregon Heritage Tree Committee has created a brand new award! The Heritage Tree Hero award recognizes individuals and groups that view Oregon’s history from the perspective of the trees that witness/are witnessing it. Tell us about an inspirational individual or organization that is engaging communities through education about the importance of trees and raising awareness about Oregon’s history told through trees and forests. We encourage nominations that tell the …

This grove of mixed trees species was started as a memorial for Oregon members of the 10th Mountain Division who fought in Italy during WWII. They were the only US Army Division trained in mountain warfare and were trained to fight on skis.
In 1996 the first tree in this memorial grove was planted. The grove is maintained by descendants and discharged members of the 10th Mountain Division.

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US26, milepost 54, eastbound, …

Populus tremuloides
The carvings on the trees in this aspen grove are called “arborglyphs.” Most of the arborglyphs here were carved by Basque sheepherders who worked the top of the Steens Mountain in the early-to-middle 20th century.
These historic carvings were lightly etched into the bark to make notes about the sheep and leave drawings or as a means of letting one another know who had passed by each place.

Tree facts

Approx. height: 50′
Trees date …

Aurora Colony Black Walnut

Aurora Colony Black Walnut leaves

Heritage Tree Committee members, Nancy and Ed, admire the historic walnut from the balcony of the Christian Zimmerman House

Aurora Colony Black Walnut
(Juglans nigra)
This black walnut, was planted by the Zimmerman family sometime around 1884. The Zimmerman’s were prominent members of the Aurora Colony, a religious community led by Dr. William Keil, that immigrated to this location from Bethel, Missouri. David Zimmerman was a …

James and Elizabeth Baker were among the first Oregon Trail emigrants to settle in Eastern Oregon. They traveled from Iowa in 1862 and were one of the original five families to settle in what is now the City of La Grande.
La Grande was a treeless prairie when they arrived. James Baker was known as a horticulturist and planted many of the first trees in the community. Elizabeth Baker loved the …

Andrew J. Baker, who arrived in the Oregon Territory in 1843 as part of the Great Migration, planted the black walnut in 1870 next to his house, built in 1852. The house, which still stands at this site, was used as a stage coach stop in the late 1800s. The property was purchased in 1899 by William S. Russell and is still owned by Russell’s heirs.

Tree facts

Approx. height: 105′
Planted in: …

Acer macrophyllum
Two bigleaf maple trees stand on each side of a replica tollgate that marks the western-most and last tollgate to operate on the Barlow Road — the branch of the Oregon Trail that crossed the southern flank of Mt Hood. The original tollgate was in operation on this site from 1879 until 1915, and the tollgate maples are believed to have been planted in the 1880’s by Daniel Parker …

Juglans nigra
In 1863, on this site, Robert Vinton Beall, an Oregon Trail pioneer and relative to four Maryland governors, built one of the first frame buildings in Jackson County, a Gothic Revival house that is listed on the National Historic Register.
Beall and his brother Thomas were eventually to become Jackson County’s most prosperous farmers. In 1864, Robert Beall planted this Illinois black walnut to commemorate his marriage to Ann Maria …

Sequoiadendron giganteum
This giant sequoia was found as a seedling tree along the railroad tracks by Sister Protasia Schindler in 1893. She planted it in front of the Queen of Angels Monastery to give some life to the grounds. Not knowing what type of tree it was, nor how large it could grow, her tree has become a stunning landmark.
The Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel were established in Oregon in 1882 …

Pinus ponderosa
This majestic pine is the biggest of its species ever recorded. It was a giant before the Oregon Territory was established, enduring centuries of fire, insects, disease, and human impact. Recently half of its crown was lost to weather, making another Ponderosa pine taller, but “Big Tree” remains the largest in circumference.

Tree facts

Approx. height: 162
Approximate Age: 500 years
Circumference: 28′ 11″
Dedicated on: April 5, 2000

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Sequoia sempervirens
This Coast Redwood was planted in 1992 at the site of the only Japanese aerial bombing of the continental United States on September 9, 1942. The tree was planted by the pilot of the submarine-delivered reconnaissance plane, Flight Officer Nobuo Fujita. The bombing of the continental United States was in retaliation for the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in April 1942.

Tree Facts

Planted in: 1992
Dedicated on: April 7, 2001

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The …

Sequoiadendron giganteum
On March 22, 1862, the day of his son Emil’s birth, Peter Britt planted this Giant Sequoia by his home. Britt was a pioneer photographer, skilled horticulturist, and leader in Southern Oregon’s lucrative fruit industry. From its vantage point, this majestic tree has witnessed the unfolding of Jacksonville’s rich history — the gold rush prosperity of the mid 1800s, the decline at the turn of the century and the …

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana
Native to Oregon, this unique tree’s bark and wood are legendary for its hardiness and resistance to the elements. This species has a small range, most of which is in southwest Oregon. Port Orford cedar’s bounty was shared by indigenous peoples and commercial entrepreneurs alike. Iconic Port Orford cedar siding on many old structures from the CCC era remains a rarity. Many buildings from that decade were stripped of …

Captain George Flavel was a noted bar pilot and entrepreneur in Clatsop County. His piloting business and other investments helped in the development of Astoria. Flavel’s 1886 Queen Anne style house now stands as a historical museum, inseparable from the beautiful landscaping that surrounds it.
The Captain Flavel Trees are nine trees originally planted by the family gardener, Louis Schultz. The grove consists of a giant sequoia, ginko, Camperdown elm, bay …

This grove of trees was protected by the Garden Club of Oregon and given to the People of Oregon in 1949. The Garden Club started many conservation projects including Operation Wildflower on state highways, “Don’t Be a LitterBug!” campaign. The Oregon Myrtle is a highly valued evergreen hardwood that has played a significant role in Oregon’s coastal economies. The site is now owned by State Parks as the Coquille Myrtlewood Wayside …

Ulmus americana
This tree was given to Douglas County by Binger Hermann. Hermann served in the U.S. Congress from 1885 until 1897, and again from 1903 until 1907. During the intervening years, he was Commissioner of the General Land Office in Washington, D.C. The occasion for the tree donation is not known positively, but research suggests that it was planted very near the turn of the century, possibly at a dedication …

Sequoiadendron giganteum
The majestic trees that grace the grounds of the Washington County Courthouse were planted in 1880 as three year old seedlings by pioneer nurseryman John R. Porter. The Porter family came west to Oregon, from Ohio, in 1847. John Porter developed an interest in trees and started a nursery on his farm. When word of the California Gold Strike reached Oregon, he rushed there to seek his fortune. On …

Metasequoia glyptostroboides
Although it is now known that Dawn Redwoods graced the landscape of the world’s northern temperate regions during the time of the dinosaurs (Late Cretateous), fossils of this species were first discovered in 1941 in Japan. At that time the tree was believed to have been long extinct. But in 1944, live trees were found in a remote valley in central China. Fossils have since been discovered in the …

Corylus avellana
The first commercial-sized planting of hazelnuts in Oregon were made by George Dorris in 1905 when he planted his 5 acres for nut production and sold the nuts to an innovative company called Meier and Frank who in turn sold directly to consumers in ten-pound bags. Dorris also started a hazelnut nursery on the property that operated for 40 years and produced an average of 70,000 trees per year. …

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 …

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 …

A.M. Drake original homestead lodge and several of the Ponderosa Pines

Plaque marking the area of the A.M. Drake Homestead

Pinecone from the Ponderosa Pine

A.M. and Florence Drake arrived in Central Oregon in June 1900. As they made their way through the homeland of the Northern Paiute tribes and alongside the Deschutes River in a covered wagon, the Drakes stopped to assess their surroundings and make camp. It is reported the couple butted …

Ellmaker Grove

Ellmaker Oak

The trees that make up the Ellmaker Grove include the 300-400 year old Ellmaker Oak and numerous large big leaf maples that were planted by the Ellmmaker family, a large incense cedar that sheltered the family’s cattle at night and during foul weather. The first owners of the land and hence the trees were the Zumwalt family, who obtained a Donation Land Claim for the property around 1852. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Location: GeerCrest Farm, Salem, Oregon
Species: Varied, including 24 pear trees, four plum trees, one apple, one Hawthorn tree, one butternut tree, and one hickory tree
Date Planted: approx. 1847
The year 1837 saw the beginnings of mass immigration to the Willamette Valley from the Eastern United States. The Willamette Valley, described to Americans in the East as an “Eden of the West,” had been shaped by millennia of active land management by …

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 …

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. 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 day. Gov. Withycombe was known for his …

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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Grove of the States

In 1967 Oregon Attorney General Robert Y. Thornton hosted the 61st annual conference of the National Association of Attorneys General in Portland. As part of a conference event, Thornton planned for the Grove of the States as an homage to First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, and her work fostering the 1965 Highway Beautification Act. The First Lady pushed hard for freeway right-of-ways filled with green landscaping and wildflowers instead of …

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 …

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: …

Pyrus communis
This small grove of Comice pear trees are the only remaining of an original planting known as Harry & David Bear Creek Orchards Block 1A. Harry & David corporation became internationally renowned in 1932 when they began marketing their gift boxes of pears to the rich and famous. While most pear growers were hurt by the Great Depression, Harry & David brought unexpected prosperity to the economically depressed Rogue …

Juglans hindsii
This tree was notable for its size, age and that it is not native to Oregon. Its location was a probable Indian camping and fishing ground where migrating salmon were abundant and accessible. It predates the arrival of settlers and may have sprouted from a cast-off nut. Unfortunately, the tree died on November 11, 2017 when it collapsed into the highway.

Tree Facts

Approx. height: 103′
Age: 250+ years
Circumference: 20′
Dedicated on: April …

Pyrus communis
Called a Winter Nelis, or Winter Pear, this tree was planted in 1879 by Jesse Edwards, the Quaker founder of Newberg. This property was sold in 1884 to Dr. Henry John Minthorn, uncle and foster father of Herbert Hoover.
When the 11 year old Hoover arrived here from Iowa in 1885 to live with his uncle John Minthorn and family, he joined in the task of making pear butter and …

Shaggy bark from Western Juniper

J.W. P. Huntington

The Target Tree, one of the Junipers in the Grove.

Following the line of a very old Native American Trail, the Huntington Wagon Road was marked by J.W. Petit Huntington in 1864 as a route between The Dalles and Fort Klamath. When the road was firmly established, it was used by prospectors, homesteaders, soldiers, and tradesman. Warm Springs Indian scouts frequently used the road in …

Pinus ponderosa
Large oval scars on these ponderosa pines give lasting evidence of the traditional spring camp of the Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) people. In the early spring, the Nimiipuu would peel the outer bark, using the cambium layer as supplemental food and perhaps as medicine and weaving fibers. These scars were made in the late 1800’s and were probably created using metal implements acquired by trade.

Tree Facts

Age: average approx. 250 years
Dedicated …

Ulmus americana
In 1912, Belle and Ralph Jenkins purchased what is now the Jenkins Estate, Belle, the daughter of a prominent Portland businessman, Capt. J.C. Ainsworth, planted the elm grove between the original farmhouse and the main house in the style of an old English estate. American elms were a popular street tree in the early part of the 20th century, but have since been widely devastated due to Dutch elm …

The Lees and their seven children arrived in the Willamette Valley in 1848. In 1850, they took advantage of the Donation Land Claim Act to gain title to their 611 acres in what is now known as Canby.
The oak tree the family planted sits on the site of the family’s third home, which was constructed by carpenters with the Oregon and California Railroad in 1869. When Lee died in 1887, …

Carya ovata
Mary Louisa Black planted this shagbark hickory near her home in 1866 from nuts she carried from Missouri on the Oregon Trail in 1865. Of the nuts she planted, two grew into trees, This tree is the lone survivor of snow, summer heat and Rogue River flooding and the only shagbark hickory in the area.

Tree Facts

Approx. height: 18′
Age: 131 years
Circumference: 4′
Dedicated on: April 6, 1998

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Species: Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora)
Planted: 1890
Circumference: 90 inches
Height: approx. 50 feet
Crown spread: 50 feet

The McCall Magnolia was planted in 1890 in front of the renowned home of John M. and Mary Elizabeth McCall in memory of John’s daughter Elsie, who died in 1890. While a Southern Magnolia’s life span can be greater than 100 years, it is rare that this species can thrive in this climate for so many years. Recent …

Pinus ponderosa
The scars on this Ponderosa pine are the remaining evidence of Japanese bomb fragments, since chopped out, that hit the tree in World War II. In 1943, six thousand balloon bombs were launched by the Japanese, traveling the jet stream wind current over 6200 miles to their destination along our west coast. In 1945, six locals happened upon one of the unexploded bombs while setting out for a fishing …

Cupressus macrocarpa
Seeds for this non-native tree were brought here by an unknown settler, but this particular tree was transplanted to its present location by Harrison Blake when he built his house in the 1850’s. Although this tree was surpassed in 1996 as the largest of its species in the nation, it still holds that distinction within the state.
The nearby Blake home, now housing the Chetco Valley Museum, is the oldest …

Pseudotsuga menziesii
This Rocky Mountain Douglas fir was raised from a seed carried to the moon by Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa in 1971.
The story begins in 1953 when a man named Stuart Roosa, a native of Oklahoma, took a job as a US Forest Service smokejumper, a firefighter who would parachute into the wilderness to fight forest fires. Roosa came to love the forests of Oregon, a love that he …

This tree, located in Regatta Park in Lincoln City, is a remnant of an ancient coastal forest cared for by indigenous peoples since time immemorial. Oregon industries logged most of these giants at the turn of 20th century, reserving this tree to seed a new forest and witness the development of Lincoln City. In 2018, the community named the tree Nuu-k’wii-daa-naa~-ye’ —“Our Ancestor” in the local Siletz Dee-ni language—to honor …

Castanea sativa
The Nyberg Chestnut was part of a 150 tree mixed orchard that was planted around 1903 and owned by John Nyberg, an immigrant from Sweden. When Interstate 5 was being built, the Nyberg home and orchard were located on the highway right-of-way and had to be moved and most of the orchard was destroyed. But when a bulldozer came to topple the chestnut, John stood in front of the …

Picea sitchensis
The forces that shaped this unique Sitka spruce (Picea sitschensis) have been debated for many years. Whether natural events or possibly Native Americans were the cause remains a mystery.
The tree measures more than 14 feet across at its base and has no central trunk. Instead, limbs extend horizontally as much as 30 feet before turning upward. It is 105 feet tall and is estimated to be around 250 years …

Orenco Elm Trees

The American elm street trees (Ulmus Americana) in the community of Orenco were planted in 1912 by the town’s namesake – Oregon Nursery Company. A nationally known nursery in its time, the company was employee owned. ORENCO shipped its nursery stock on the Oregon Electric Railroad line which is now used by MAX light-rail. Many Oregon cities we know today were formed from company towns such as Orenco.
You can click …

Prunus avium
Folklore is that this tree was planted in 1847 by Eugene Skinner, co-founder of the City of Eugene in 1853. The tree is within the boundaries of Skinner’s 1850 Donation Land Claim. The General Land Office Survey of 1853 puts a cultivated area very close to this tree. It is known that Skinner had an orchard of fruit (peach and almond) trees in 1860, and since the cultivar cannot …

Pseudotsuga menziesii
Early settlers in the “old town” area of Lake Oswego used this giant Douglas-fir as their lantern post by hanging a lantern on a peg driven into the side of the tree to conduct town meetings. In 1852, Oswego’s first Sunday school classes were held under the Peg Tree until a proper building could be built. Today it is the lone survivor of what was once a great row …

Acer macrophyllum
This bigleaf maple is believed to have been a meeting place for local Native Americans since time immemorial, leading to its traditional name.
The Pow-Wow Tree has been the site of many notable events, including the first Clackamas County Fair in 1860, the first Oregon State Fair in 1861, and the Gladstone Pow-Wow Festival in 1937. The tree was dedicated as a Bicentennial Tree in 1979 and has become the …

Populus trichocarpa
This black cottonwood is prominent in photographs taken in 1900 and 1901 to document where the vote for a Provisional Government in Oregon took place. Francis X. Matthieu, the last living participant of the 1843 vote, is shown setting the location of this site in 1900 and unveiling the monument here in the ceremony of 1901.
The area around the monument is believed to be the first land purchased by …

R.V. Short Fir

R.V. Short Fir
(Pseudotsuga menziesii)
This Douglas fir stands on the Donation Land Claim of Robert Valentine Short, a prominent land surveyor in the mid 1800’s. R.V. Short arrived in Oregon in 1847, when he was hired on a wagon train in the command of General Joel Palmer. R.V. opened up a tailor shop in Oregon City, but switched to surveying as his skills were soon in demand. He was hired to …

Populus trichocarpa
The Riding Whip Tree, as it became known, grew from a black cottonwood riding switch that was stuck in the ground by fifteen-year-old Florinda Geer in 1854 after returning from a horse ride with her uncle. The stripling took root and today stands as a massive monument to the early settlers of the Waldo Hills. In 1936, the Daughters of the American Revolution memorialized this tree with a bronze …

Carya ovata
This tree sits on property settled in 1868 by W.S. Frazier, the founder of Milton, Oregon. The Frazier family carried hickory nuts along the Oregon Trail from their home in Texas. The nuts were planted shortly after their arrival and one grew to be a magnificent tree that is stunning for beauty and unusual bark. The Frazier property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 …

Adam Randolph Shipley crossed the Oregon Trail from Ohio in 1852. In 1861, after becoming a successful entrepreneur in Portland, Adam and his wife Celinda established a farm on this site which eventually totaled about 1,000 acres. The Shipleys donated land for the first school and grange in the Hazelia area, making their farm a center for the community. Shipley served as the State Grange Master, was one of the …

Shore Acres State Park Monterey Pine

This Monterey pine was planted between 1906 and 1921 by the Simpson family as part of their extensive estate. Louis J. Simpson was a lumberman, shipbuilder, and founder of the city of North Bend. In 1942, Simpson sold his estate to Oregon, designating it as a park. This tree was recognized in 2002 as the largest of its species in the United States by the National Register of Big Trees.
(Click on the …

Quercus garryana
The Signature Oak at The Oregon Garden is the oldest and largest tree in a grove of Oregon white oaks that predates settlement of the Willamette Valley by European immigrants and their descendents. The latest native inhabitants of the region were the Santiam group of the Kalapuyan tribe. Native people in the region depended on oak groves as a source of acorns, camas and deer, important staples in their …

Picea sitchensis
This is the first tree to be designated an official Oregon Heritage Tree and was once the biggest tree in Oregon and the National Co-Champion Sitka Spruce. It germinated from a seed onthe forest floor around the time of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and grew to its mature height about the time Christopher Columbus sailed to the new world. A legacy of the primeval coastal …

This Jeffrey pine tree is located at the site of the historic Siskiyou Smokejumper Base at the Illinois Valley Airport in Cave Junction. The Siskiyou Smokejumper Base was one of four such bases in the US built in the early 1940’s. The base was established following an incendiary bomb-drop by the Japanese in Brookings, Oregon in 1942. Forest fires required significant manpower and equipment to control, and many thought the …

Sequoiadendron giganteum
Presented by the class of 1942 to Willamette University on its 100th anniversary, these five giant Sequoias include the tallest of its kind on any college or university campus in the country.
Founded by Jason Lee in 1842, Willamette University is recognized as the oldest university in the west. Since 1997, the campus annually decorates the five trees with Holiday lights from mid-December to January. The tree-lighting ceremony includes music …

Quercus garryana
Dating back for six to ten thousand years before the arrival of Euro-American settlers, Kalapuya Indians lived in the Willamette Valley and relied upon on the valley’s oak groves as source of acorns and other food resources such as camas. The practice of following seasonal rounds to gather food and plant materials led the native people to recurrent camp grounds, one of which is believed to be the oak …

Pseudotsuga menziesii
Between 1949 and 1973, an army of volunteers helped plant an estimated 72 million trees to reforest the Tillamook Burn — one of the largest forest replanting efforts in history. Here, in the area of Cedar Creek Flat, the new forest was planted entirely by school children from Tillamook, Forest Grove and Portland. Students arrived by the busload and were met by foresters who provided Douglas-fir seedlings, tools, and …

This large Gray Poplar (Populus canescens) located southeast of Benton Hall on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis, was a popular gathering spot on campus shortly after the university (at the time the school was known as the Oregon Agricultural College) was founded. The tree got its name around 1900. The OSU Class of 1901 christened it as the “Trysting Tree” after college President Thomas Gatch admonished two students …

Sugar Pine Trees

Sugar Pine Canopy

Largest Sugar Pine in Tub Springs Wayside

Tub Springs Wayside, 1932

The Tub Springs Sugar Pine is the first Sugar pine to be elected to the Oregon Heritage Tree list. The species was “Discovered” by David Douglas in early 1800’s (Douglas-fir namesake); but known by indigenous people for millennia before him. The Sugar pine’s range is from Baja California in the south to Southern Washington Cascades in the …

The Valley of the Giants is a 51 acre parcel of land containing a stand of old-growth Douglas-fir and hemlock trees many of which are more than 20 feet in circumference and nearly 200 feet tall. Some of the largest trees are between 400 and 450 years old. The largest, blown down in a windstorm in 1981, was more than 35 feet in circumference and over 600 years old.
Because of …

Acer platanoides
One of the original 250 Norway maple trees planted by volunteers along Spruce Street and “S” Avenue in 1923 to commemorate the end of the First World War and to appreciate the returning veterans. The beautiful tree-lined parkway, known as Victory Way, stretches from downtown to Riverside Park. The planting culminated in a large ceremony including singing, a luncheon, and speeches.
Although less than 25 of the original maples survive …

Sequoiadendron giganteum
Judge William Waldo, the son of an 1842 pioneer, planted this sequoia in 1872. Waldo made efforts during his lifetime to preserve the tree and over time others have saved it from the encroaching street system. In 1936 the Salem City Council declared the site, a twelve by twenty foot plot of land, a city park.

Tree Facts

Approx. height: 85′
Planted in: 1872
Circumference: 22′
Dedicated on: April 8, 1998

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Tsuga mertensiana
On September 13, 1888, after traveling two months along the spine of the Cascade Range, Judge John B. Waldo, Oregon’s foremost nineteenth-century conservationist, and his companions rested at Island Lake and carved their names into the mountain hemlock near the southeast shore of the lake. This trip provided first-hand information for Waldo to use in his lobbying efforts to support legislation designating the 4.5 million-acre Cascade Forest Reserve in …

Ulmus
This tree has long been identified with Henry H. Wheeler for whom Wheeler County is named. From 1864 through 1868, Wheeler drove the first stagecoach service past this site on The Dalles – Canyon City Wagon Road. In 1866, Wheeler was ambushed near here and severely wounded. A monument dedicated to Wheeler stood by this tree for over sixty years until it was moved with the realignment of Highway 26.

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Willamette Mission Cottonwood

Populus trichocarpa
This giant black cottonwood stands near the site of the Willamette Mission established by Reverend Jason Lee in 1834. At that time, the Mission and tree were located on the banks of the Willamette River. The great flood of 1861 changed the river course to its present channel, leaving what is now Mission Lake. The Willamette Mission Cottonwood is the largest of its kind in Oregon and the nation.

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Willamette River Cable Trees

For more than a century, loggers used rivers, especially the Willamette, to move millions of board feet in logs. Until ground transport became more economical in the 1970’s, men walked the logs, assembling huge rafts with long pike poles that tug boats pulled down the river. Cables wrapped around the trees along the bank tethered the rafts to shore while they waited for access to mills, sometimes for several months.
This …

Witness Tree

Oregon Heritage Tree Committee Members at the Witness Tree (photo taken by Paul Reis)

Dennis Devine, owner of the Witness Tree Vineyard (photo taken by Paul Reis)

Quercus garryanna
This Oregon White Oak reflects the early practice of using landmarks as survey markers for property boundaries. With time, these original markers have disappeared. The Witness Tree served as a survey marker for the southeast corner of the Claiborne C. Walker donation Land …

Species: Pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii)
Circumference: 23feet
Height: approx. 68 feet
Crown spread: 70 feet
Age: 65+ years
The large Pacific madrone tree overlooking the Yang house was designated a City of Corvallis Heritage Tree in 2016. It is said by the Corvallis City forester to be the largest madrone in Corvallis, and the second largest madrone in Benton County; the largest being in an inaccessible rural area.
The tree is located at a house designed …

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