TREE ROOTS TAP DEEP INTO HISTORY

The legacy of James and Elizabeth Baker is found in the black locust Heritage Tree at EOU ().

Story and photos

by Dick Mason

The tree's story is compelling. The Bakers were one of the first five families to settle in La Grande in 1862. La Grande was then a treeless prairie, but James Baker helped change this by planting many of its first trees.

Elizabeth Baker loved the locust trees her husband planted at their home. When she died in 1883 her husband planted a black locust near her grave. He brought pails of water to it every day in the spring and summer until his death about 10 years later. As La Grande grew, the remains of Elizabeth Baker's grave were moved to a new cemetery but the locust tree remained.

The tale of the Baker black locust is one of many compelling ones shared last week by Nancy Appling of Medford during a presentation on society's interaction with trees. The Chautauqua program was sponsored by the Oregon Council for the Humanities and the La Grande Community Landscape and Forestry Commission.

Appling, a horticulturist and a Master Gardener, spoke of many things including Oregon's Heritage Trees. Oregon has 38 sites on its Heritage Tree list, including two in La Grande: the Baker black locust and Victory Way along Spruce Street and S Avenue.

The Victory Way heritage designation recognizes the original 250 Norway maples planted by volunteers there in 1923 to commemorate the end of World War I and salute returning veterans. Less than 25 of the original maples survive today, but 40 new trees were planted in their place in 1998 in remembrance of Victory Way.

La Grande is not the only place in Union and Wallowa counties with a Heritage Tree site. Another is in Wallowa County at the Indian Village Grove of ponderosa pines, Appling said. These trees have large oval scars that provide lasting evidence of the traditional spring camp of the Nez Perce. The Indians would peel the outer bark, using the cambium layer as supplemental food. The scars were created in the 1800s and were probably created by metal implements acquired through trade.

The grove is situated on the Nez Perce National Historic Trail in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. It is on Forest Service Road 880, two miles south of the junction with Forest Service Road 46.

To learn of these and other stories about Oregon's Heritage Trees is to learn of forgotten historic nuggets, Appling said.

The Bombsite Tree, 19 miles east of Brookings, is a prime example. It is a redwood planted as a token of peace in 1992 at the site of one of the only Japanese aerial bombings of the continental United States during World War II. The tree was planted by the pilot of the plane that dropped the bomb, flight officer Nobuo Fujitka.

The intent of the bombing was to ignite a forest fire, Appling said. Fortunately a fire was not started because the bomb was dropped in the fall.

The stories Appling told of Oregon's Heritage Trees also includes one of ancient history involving a a Dawn redwood. Dawn redwoods were thought to have been extinct for thousands of years before they were discovered in 1944 in a remote valley in central China. The trees' seeds were collected in 1947 and many were planted at sites in the United States including Portland's Hoyt Arboretum.

In the fall of 1952 the Hoyt Arboretum's Dawn redwood became the first in the Western hemisphere in about 6 million years to produce cones, Appling said.

Appling believes that the value of trees is something that cannot be overlooked. She quotes American poet Clarrisa Pinkola Estes to make express this sentiment:

"To be poor and without trees is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor and to have trees is to be completely rich in ways that money can not buy.''

Appling is impressed with what La Grande has done to recognize its trees and its abundance of them. La Grande has received Tree City USA recognition many times.

"I'm proud of La Grande,'' Appling said."I had no idea of how hard it has worked to preserve its trees.''