The West Dallas Gateway Pecan

This pecan was standing at the Trinity crossing before anyone built a bridge over it. The first one went up in 1855, and the Texas Historic Tree Coalition dates the tree to more than 175 years, roughly the age of Dallas itself. From that corner it watched the last bison herds and the men who shot them, then the cattle drives north on the Shawnee Trail, then a century of traffic that ended with a six-lane intersection at its feet. It sat in the Trinity floodplain through the floods of 1866, 1871, 1890 and 1908. In 2009 the city planned to redesign the intersection and the tree was in the way; a neighbour, Katherine Homan, ran a campaign that saved it. It has since lost three major limbs and been hit by vehicles more than once, and it is still in leaf. In 2023 it got a permanent designation plaque, which is a modest reward for surviving everything else. Nobody has published a girth for it. If you get a tape around that trunk, send us the number. The pin sits at the Beckley Avenue end of the Commerce Street bridge, on the south side of the junction, which is where the tree stands. Come by bike or car; there is no rail stop nearby.