In 1872, the story goes, a priest chose where to build a university by standing under a tree. Edward Sorin, who had already founded Notre Dame in Indiana, found this limestone hilltop south of Austin almost bare, with one big oak on it, known then as the Umbrella or the Lone Tree. The school he started here became St. Edward's University, and the oak has carried his name since at least 1976, when it first turned up in the student paper. It has had a rough century and a half. In 1903 fire destroyed part of the Main Building beside it. In 1922 twin tornadoes crossed the hill, one of them rated EF4, and the tree stayed up. For decades after that it stood with a parking lot beneath its limbs, breathing exhaust, until the lot was taken out. The numbers are a little unsettled. In 2022, when it won Austin's Tree of the Year in the large-tree category against 36 other Central Texas trees, the university put it at 250 years on its arborist's word. In 2026 the student paper reported about 260, confirmed by tomography scans, with a trunk 17 feet round, about 5.2 metres, and a height of 56 feet. Either way, it was already about a century old when Sorin came up the hill. The university holds its Ring Ceremony under it, which is a fair return for picking the site.
St. Edward's University, on the limestone ridge beside the historic Main Building, 3001 South Congress Avenue You can recognise it by its trunk, about 5.2 metres round, the big tree on the hilltop where the Ring Ceremony is held. It stands beside the historic Main Building of St. Edward's University.
Free. Stands on the open hilltop quad of St. Edward's University, a private university whose historic core campus around the Main Building is open to visitors; it is the site of the student Ring Ceremony and the university's most-photographed spot after the Red Doors, so it is treated as a public-facing landmark rather than restricted ground.
On the St. Edward's University campus at 3001 South Congress Avenue, about a 10 minute walk from the South Congress/Congress & Woodward Capital Metro bus stops; roughly a 15-20 minute bus ride south of downtown Austin.