The American Elm of Schiller Woods

Dutch elm disease has made an American elm with a trunk four metres round an uncommon thing, and the county's register puts one in Schiller Woods, 4.07 metres round, ranked only third of its kind. The Forest Preserves of Cook County list it at 25.6 metres tall, 84 feet, in their champion tree register. Two American elms on preserve land rank above it, and neither is on our map. Elsewhere we list bigger ones still: the elm at the East 97th Street entrance to Central Park and the Smithsonian's Witness Elm in Washington are both over 5.4 metres round. Against Montreal's Last Elm of Mont-Royal, at 3.46, this one is the heavier tree. This entry comes with more caveats than most on the page, and they are worth knowing before you set out. The register row carries no measurement date, so we cannot say when the tape went round it, and no second source confirms the size. The record was last edited in February 2025, which is the latest sign we have that the tree stands. And the pin is the register's point, close but not checked against the crown, so look for the trunk rather than the dot. Schiller Woods lies about 1.5 kilometres north of the champion red pine at Indian Boundary. Nobody has dated this elm. If you have seen it, measured it or know its age, tell us.