The W.W. Glover Cemetery Post Oak

The biggest post oak in Dallas County stands in a one-acre pioneer cemetery on Military Parkway, and nobody has dated it. The Texas Big Tree Registry put a tape around it on 10 September 2020 and recorded 166 inches of circumference, 50 feet of height and a 49 foot spread, which makes it the county champion of its species. It shares the plot with more than seventy graves from the settlement era. George W. Glover acquired the land in 1844 and deeded it to his son William Wald Glover in 1872. The first burial was in 1857, a five year old called Sarah Beeman. The last was in 1951, after which the place went quiet and the oak carried on. Volunteers maintain it now, and a Texas historical marker stands at the gate. Post oaks are slow growers with hard, dense wood, which is why they turn up as the oldest thing left standing on ground that has been farmed, grazed and built over. This one is thicker than any other recorded in the county, and no source gives it a year. If you know when it went in, or you have a tape measure and half an hour, tell us and we will put a number on this page. The register's own coordinate places the tree, so the pin is good.