Cook County's third-ranked bur oak has a trunk 4.83 metres round, to the centimetre the girth we list for the Kile Oak, Indianapolis's best-known tree. The Forest Preserves of Cook County measured it on 1 August 2023: 24.4 metres tall, 80 feet, under a crown about 27 metres one way and 22 the other, so the tree is wider than it is high. Two bur oaks on preserve land rank above it. Bur oak is the tree Chicago's oldest stories hang on. The Midway oak, the Wooded Island grove and the Union Ridge savanna on this page are all bur oaks, and none of them carries a measured trunk. This one is the reverse: numbers, and no history. Harms Woods is an oak woodland and an Illinois Nature Preserve, so this oak stands among others of its kind rather than alone on a lawn. It also makes a pair. About 820 metres to the north-east, in Harms Flatwoods, stands the county's champion silver maple, the thickest silver maple in the register. One walk takes in both. The register is the only source for this oak. It records size, rank and the day of measurement, and says nothing about age, and girth alone is a poor clock for an oak. Nobody has dated it. If you know how old it is, tell us.
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Harms Woods, Forest Preserves of Cook County, IllinoisYou can recognise it by the trunk, 4.83 metres round, under a crown about 27 by 22 metres, wider than the tree is tall. It stands in Harms Woods, about 820 metres south-west of the champion silver maple.
Public forest preserve; the register lists Public_Access = Yes. Free. Hours not checked for this site.
Not verified. Forest Preserves site; check Metra or Pace routes before going.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
- In the official register: Forest Preserves of Cook County Champion Tree Register
- services2.arcgis.com
- fpdcc.com