Under the Branches

Austin is one big tree hugger when it comes to environmental causes and there is no other badge the City wears more proudly than that of tree lover. The City's most famous tree is a Southern Live Oak that is almost 500 years old. It is the surviving member of a grove of 14 known as the Council Oaks. Lots of events have taken place beneath it's branches. The tree was a meeting place for Comanche and Tonkawa Indians when the tribes launched war and peace parties. In 1830 the leader of the Austin Colony, Stephen F Austin met with local Native Americans to negotiate and sign the first Texas boundary treaty.
In 1927 the American Forestry Association proclaimed the tree the most perfect specimen of a North American tree and inducted it into the Tree Hall of Fame in Washington DC. For the next 60 years the tree continued to grow and grow it did with branches almost 200 feet long. Then in 1989 everything changed. In an act of deliberate vandalism the tree was poisoned with a quality of herbicide sufficient to kill 100 trees it's size. Tree lovers came from every corner of Austin and the State of Texas to pray and give the tree spiritual guidance in it's quest to survive. Children of all ages sent the tree Get Well cards and soon money began poring it to save the tree. A massive effort like no other Austin has ever attempted for any other problem finnaly paid off and the tree was saved.
The poisoning was such a dastardly deed that the man who did it received eight years in prison. He claimed he tried to kill the tree as a means of showing his power in casting spells. Today only about one third of the tree remains and half of it's crown is gone . Although well known Arborists of the time expected the tree to die, the Treaty Oak survived and is thriving. It's a lopsided reminder of just how crazy people can become and how a City can rise to terrible event. Todays Treaty Oak is a symbol the of strength and endurance it took to fight for Texas's freedom.

Ten years after the poisoning, the Treaty Oak produced it's first crop of acorns. An Oak sapling grown from one of the acorns was planted at Austin's current gathering place, the Austin City Hall. Ceremony, celebration and the administrating of City law take place in the presents of the Treaty Oak's offspring so the tree should feel right at home. As I stand next to the sapling and grasp it's small trunk I wonder if future generations will even care about what all the citizens did to save Austin's most famous tree. Would future generation rise to such a similar occasion to save a tree or anything else for that matter? I would like to think they would but today it's a disposable world so they probably would not put fourth much effort.