A road was moved to keep these live oaks. When Harley Avenue was realigned into what is now Trail Drive, the trees were slated to come out. The City Forester, a State Forester and several other city departments stepped in, and the answer was to rework the parkland at the edge of the Botanic Garden so the road could pass and the oaks could stay. They now line the way into the Will Rogers exhibition grounds, which the city's heritage register calls a green gateway. It is a fair description of what a cluster of live oaks does to the start of a road. The register is our only written source, and it is short on numbers. It does not say how many trees there are, how big any of them is, how old they are, or even when the road was moved. We have not picked out one trunk as the champion, so treat this as a stand you take in from the roadside rather than a single tree. If you know when Harley Avenue became Trail Drive, or have counted or measured the oaks, tell us. What we can say is that a naturalist logged an observation at the spot in October 2026, and that they make an easy stop on a longer walk. Trinity Park's Van Zandt live oaks are about 300 metres away.
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Getting there
Trail Drive at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden edge, between the Botanic Garden and the Will Rogers Memorial Center, Fort Worth, TX 76107
You can recognise them as the cluster of live oaks lining the edge of Trail Drive at the Botanic Garden. They stand beside the road on the way into the Will Rogers exhibition grounds, visible from the sidewalk.
Free. Trees at the edge of Trail Drive on City of Fort Worth parkland (Botanic Garden grounds, realigned parkland), viewable from the public road and sidewalk; no source states the exact legal status of the strip, OSM shows Trail Drive as a public tertiary road at the point.
Cultural District, about 4.5 km west of downtown Fort Worth; about 300 m from Trinity Park's Van Zandt trees (ftw_007, ftw_008); Trinity Metro bus routes serve the district, no rail.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.