The Champion Northern Pin Oak of Bemis Woods North

This oak's crown reaches about 24 metres across, as wide as the tree is tall. It is a northern pin oak, which the county's register also calls Hill's oak, and the Forest Preserves of Cook County rank it first of its species on their land. They measured it on 23 July 2024: a trunk 3.21 metres round, 126 inches, a height of 24.4 metres, 80 feet, and a crown about 24.1 metres one way and 17.7 the other. It is the first of its species on our map. The name invites confusion with the pin oak, a different species, and our Chicago page holds both. The champion pin oak at Rolling Knolls is taller at 29 metres and thicker at 3.59, yet the two share a build: a crown nearly as broad as the tree is high. Bemis Woods North stands apart from the other champions here. National Grove, with its ranked cottonwood, hackberry and chinkapin oak, lies about six kilometres to the east, and the champion sycamore at Riverside Lawn about seven. Either could share a day with this oak. The pin is the register's GPS fix at the tree; how the trail approaches it, we have not been able to find out. The register is the only source. It gives size, rank and the date, and says nothing of age. Nobody has dated this oak. If you know how old it is, tell us.