The Heritage Courtyard Live Oak

When Fort Worth's Museum of Science and History was rebuilt from 2007, one live oak was allowed to stay, and the new building was shaped around it. It now stands on its own in the museum's enclosed Heritage Courtyard. It got there in the early 1950s. Ruth Carter Stevenson, daughter of Amon Carter and the driving force behind the Amon Carter Museum, planted trees along Burnett-Tandy Drive, by the city's account because she loved to plant trees and because the space was so empty. They were there to frame the museum when its building opened in 1954. The museum's own beginnings are dated differently elsewhere, to 1945 as a children's museum, so take 1954 as the building's date, not the institution's. The 2007 expansion cleared most of Stevenson's trees. This one was spared. The city's heritage register says the architect blended the building to the tree, and credits Bartlett Tree Experts with giving time and resources to keep it alive; that last part we have only from the city. Counted from her planting, it is about 65 to 80 years old. Nobody has published its girth or height, and they hardly matter here. What makes the tree is that somebody decided a museum should bend for it. The courtyard is inside the museum, which charges admission and is closed on Mondays, so check it is open on the day.