The most famous thing about this oak is a story nobody can document. For years a plaque near the corner of Capitol and Bagby said that eleven criminals were hanged from its limbs while Texas was an independent republic, between 1836 and 1845. The plaque has since gone, and the story has not held up well without it. The Houston Press calls it uncertain. The Houston Chronicle has called the tree's grim reputation false. And the executions that a 1913 history of the city by Dr S.O. Young does record, three of them according to the Press, are tied to a different tree altogether, in Freedmans Town. What remains is the oak itself, which is the better story anyway. It is a southern live oak usually described as roughly 400 years old. Nobody has published a ring count or even a girth, so treat that as a figure the city repeats rather than one anybody measured. It is old; exactly how old is an open question. It has stood through all of downtown Houston's history without the courtesy of a park around it. It stands on the public sidewalk across the street from Bayou Place, and the City of Houston's Civic Center Department keeps it alive there. Our pin is an estimate of the corner, not the trunk, so check which tree you are looking at. And if you have a tape measure, the girth would settle more than the plaque ever did.
Corner of Capitol St and Bagby St, across from Bayou Place, Downtown Houston, TX You can recognise it as the old live oak on the corner of Capitol Street and Bagby Street. It stands on the public sidewalk, across the street from Bayou Place.
Free; on the public sidewalk area at the corner, maintained by the City of Houston Civic Center Department.
Downtown, next to Bayou Place; METRORail Main Street line stops about 5 to 8 min walk away.