What is the oldest tree in Austin?
The oldest tree in Austin is Old Baldy, a bald cypress standing where Onion Creek runs through McKinney Falls State Park, about nine kilometres southeast of the centre. Texas Parks and Wildlife calls it the oldest bald cypress on public land in the state and puts it beyond five hundred years, with some accounts reaching five hundred and fifty. Father Antonio Olivares, the Franciscan who went on to found San Antonio, wrote about it in 1716, so it was already a landmark three centuries ago. Downtown, the Treaty Oak runs it close at roughly five hundred years and is the more famous of the two, largely because someone tried to kill it in 1989 and failed.
Ages here come from the Texas A&M Forest Service, which keeps a register of the state's historic trees, and from the bodies that manage each site: Texas Parks and Wildlife for Old Baldy, the University of Texas for the Battle Oaks, the Shoal Creek Conservancy for the Seiders grove. None of those figures comes from a core sample, so treat every year on this page as an estimate that the people closest to the tree are willing to stand behind. That register is a history of Texas trees rather than a survey of what still stands, and it is worth knowing that several of Austin's named trees are in it and gone. The Washington Elm on the capitol grounds was removed in 2000 after storm damage and decay. The Memorial Pecan, planted in 1945 to honour Texans who served in the war, came out during a capitol expansion in the early 1990s, and its wood was reportedly turned into benches. The pecans planted at Governor Hogg's grave at his own request are no longer there either. Only living trees appear on this page.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.