Spokane's oldest trees survived by being useless to loggers: three Douglas firs above Mystic Falls in Indian Canyon were left standing because their tapering trunks made poor lumber, put at roughly 400 years by the city's arborist. A small park behind the Corbin Art Center holds three of the only trees on the city's Heritage Registry. Finch Arboretum adds a champion willow, America's first dawn redwoods, a rare Miyabe maple and a towering spruce, and three more scattered across the city round out thirteen.
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1
The Ancient Douglas Firs of Indian Canyon
Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) · around 400 years (arborist estimate for the largest of the three) · Indian Canyon / West Hills, Spokane
These firs are still standing because they were not worth cutting down. A Douglas fir whose trunk tapers sharply makes poor lumber, and the crews who took nearly all the old growth out of the hills around Spokane walked past three of them on the cliff edge above Mystic Falls.
The largest is around 400 years old. That figure comes from Jeff Perry, the City of Spokane's lead arborist, who told the Spokesman-Review in 2019 that he could get his arms around perhaps a third of the trunk, and that measuring it properly is not really possible, because the tree's roots are holding the edge of the cliff together. That is the best description of it anyone has written. It is not so much standing on the canyon rim as being the canyon rim.
Four centuries puts their germination in the early 1600s. Chief Spokane Garry's last campsite is a short walk from where they stand; he died in 1892, by which time these three were already more than two centuries old.
One caution. All of this rests on a single newspaper feature, although a named city arborist with his arms around the trunk is better evidence than most trees get. No girth has ever been published, and the pin marks the trailhead rather than the trees.
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2
The State Champion White Willow of Finch Arboretum
White Willow (Salix alba) · about 90 to 100 years · West Spokane
The largest white willow in Washington started life as somebody's garden tree. A woman came to the Spokane parks department to tell them so: her family planted it more than ninety years ago, when the ground that is now the John A. Finch Arboretum was still houses rather than trees.
The houses went. The willow stayed, and it is now the state champion of its species, the biggest known white willow in Washington, on the word of Jeff Perry, the city's lead arborist.
It is also on borrowed time, and the city says so plainly. In 2019 Perry gave it roughly thirty more years before it starts to split and come down, which is how large willows usually go: not in one storm but in pieces, over years. That is the bargain with the species. White willow grows fast and soft and generous, puts on size quickly and does not do centuries the way an oak does, so a willow of championship size is a rarer thing to stand in front of than ninety years makes it sound.
Its history rests on one newspaper feature and one family's memory, which is thinner than most trees here carry. If you know who planted it, or anything about the houses that used to stand here, tell us.
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3
The First Dawn Redwoods of Finch Arboretum
Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) · about 75 years (planted circa 1950) · West Spokane
Botanists knew this tree from fossils before they knew it was alive. Metasequoia was described from imprints in rock, and everyone assumed that was the end of it, until a living stand turned up in a valley in central China in 1943. A species filed under extinct was still quietly growing.
Seed went out to institutions around the world, and in the 1950s the John A. Finch Arboretum received three of the first dawn redwoods brought to North America. Two are still standing. At about seventy-five years old they are infants by redwood standards, and they are also most of the species' history on this continent.
What makes them worth the walk is visible without knowing any of it. Dawn redwood is a deciduous conifer, which is close to a contradiction: soft feathery needles all summer, rust orange in late autumn, then bare all winter while every evergreen around it carries on as normal. The trunks flute deeply as they age, with vertical channels running down between the branches.
The arboretum is free and sits in west Spokane. These two stand a short walk from the state champion willow, so it is one afternoon rather than two trips. Nobody has recorded a girth for either of them; if you have a tape measure, we would take the number.
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4
The Chestnut Champion
Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), likely the double-flowered cultivar 'Baumannii' · not documented · South Hill (Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens / Corbin Art Center area)
Spokane opened a heritage tree register in 1998, and by 2012 it held exactly three trees. All three stand in the same small park on the South Hill, and this is the largest of them: a horse chestnut the city records at 102 feet tall with a crown just as wide.
Take the figure with some caution. A mature horse chestnut usually stops between 50 and 80 feet, so 102 is either a genuinely exceptional tree or a generous measurement, and the register's own wording calls it a contender for state champion size rather than the champion.
The identification splits as well, and that one you can settle yourself on the ground. The city lists it plainly as Aesculus hippocastanum. The 2012 survey by the Spokane tree collector Edward Lester, written up by HistoryLink, has it as the double-flowered cultivar Baumannii, believed to be the largest or second largest in Washington. Baumannii carries sterile double flowers, which means a spring of heavy white candles and then no conkers at all underneath it in autumn.
It grows on ground that belonged to D.C. Corbin, who built railroads into the Inland Northwest and a house on the hill to go with them. The house is the Corbin Art Center now. The apricot behind it and the elm in the gardens next door are the other two trees on that 2012 list, so all three are one short walk.
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5
Corbin's Apricot
Apricot (Prunus armeniaca) · around 110 to 115 years · South Hill (Corbin Art Center grounds)
Spokane put three trees on its heritage register, and one of them came out of somebody's kitchen garden. Former residents of the D.C. Corbin House remembered a working garden directly behind the building, above the rock wall. Everything else about it is gone. The apricot is the remnant, and the city's register says so in as many words.
A 2012 survey called it a hundred years old, which puts it somewhere around 110 to 115 now, with the usual slack that a round number carries. Prunus armeniaca, the Armenian plum, is not a species that does centuries: commercial orchards pull apricots out and replant long before a tree gets near one. This one was never pulled out, because the garden around it stopped being a garden and became a public park.
D.C. Corbin built railroads into the Inland Northwest and a mansion on the South Hill to go with them. The mansion is the Corbin Art Center now, the grounds are open to anybody, and the tree that once supplied a kitchen is still fruiting on them.
It is history rather than spectacle: a modest fruit tree with a documented job, standing a couple of minutes from the other two trees on that register, a champion-sized horse chestnut and an elm in the restored gardens next door. Nobody has recorded a girth. If you have a tape measure, we would take the number.
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6
The Moore-Turner Elm
Elm (the city register lists American Elm, Ulmus americana; a 2012 tree survey citing dendrologist Robert Van Pelt identifies the same tree instead as a European/Russian White Elm, Ulmus laevis, and calls it the third-largest of that species in the state; sources disagree and neither has been resolved) · not documented · South Hill (Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens)
Two credible people have looked at this elm and come back with different species. The City of Spokane's heritage register calls it an American elm, Ulmus americana, 88 feet tall with a 44 foot crown. The 2012 survey published by HistoryLink, citing Robert Van Pelt, who wrote Champion Trees of Washington State and coordinated the national big tree programme here, calls the registered elm in these gardens a European or Russian white elm, Ulmus laevis, and ranks it third largest of that species in the state. Both accounts point at the same tree in the same garden. Nobody has settled it.
The disagreement matters less standing under it than it looks in print, because either answer is a reason to go. A large American elm is a survivor, since Dutch elm disease took most of the big ones across North America inside a generation. A state-ranked white elm is rarer still, a Eurasian species almost nobody here plants.
The garden was laid out from the 1890s by Frank Rockwood Moore and the United States senator George Turner, left to go wild for decades, and dug back out as the Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens. The elm is the one big tree among terraces given over to roses, perennials and a tea house.
Check the calendar first. The gardens open 16 May to 15 September, Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 3:30pm, and are locked the rest of the year.
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7
Dwight's Linden of Finch Arboretum
Hungarian Linden (Tilia x juranyana) · about 100 years · West Spokane
Finch Arboretum used to be somebody's houses. Before that, on the ground where this linden stands, it was pioneer Daniel H. Dwight's own planting, and the tree outlasted both.
The Spokane Heritage Tree Register lists it as a Hungarian linden, a species you will not find on many American streets, standing about 72 feet tall and somewhere around a century old. HistoryLink's 2012 survey of the city's champion and historic trees names the same tree, the same planter and the same species, citing a tree survey by Dr. Edward Lester. Two records, a register and a historian, agreeing on one linden.
Dwight is the reason the arboretum exists at all: his family gave part of the original ground. The tree that carries his name is not the biggest or the oldest thing here, next to the state champion white willow and the first dawn redwoods planted nearby, but it is the one still standing from before this was a park.
Nobody has published a girth for it, so treat the century figure as the register's own estimate rather than a measured fact. If you have taped the trunk, tell us.
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8
The Massive Miyabe of Finch Arboretum
Miyabe Maple (Acer miyabei) · about 58 years · West Spokane
Its name promises more than the tree delivers, and that is fine, because the name is comparing it to the wrong thing.
The Spokane Heritage Tree Register calls this a Miyabe maple, Acer miyabei, a species native to Japan and rarely planted in North America, and names it a potential state champion. HistoryLink's 2012 survey of the arboretum's champion trees lists the same species among Finch Arboretum's likely state first-place holders. Two sources, register and historian, pointing at the same maple.
A state champion sounds like it should compete with the willow down the path or the conifers around it. It does not, because Acer miyabei stays modest for a maple wherever it grows. What makes it the biggest of its kind is simply that almost nobody in Washington has planted one to compare it to. At about 58 years old and 54 feet tall, it is not massive in the way its own register entry names it. It is massive for a species most visitors have never heard of, in an arboretum built on exactly that kind of rarity.
No girth has been published for it. If you have measured the trunk, tell us.
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9
The Zelkova Giant of Webster Park
Saw-leaf Zelkova (Zelkova serrata) · North Spokane
Seven trees line the west and southwest edges of Webster Park, and the city's own heritage register singles out one of them as almost the biggest of its kind in Washington. That is a saw-leaf zelkova, a species that shows up on street-tree lists more often than it shows up this large.
The register puts it at 53 feet tall with a crown spreading 66 feet, wider than the tree is tall, which is the shape zelkova takes when it has room and time: a vase-like spread of branches fanning out from a short trunk rather than one central spire. Nobody has published its age or measured its girth. HistoryLink's 2012 survey of Spokane's notable trees independently photographed a zelkova at this same park, confirming the species stands here without needing to take the city's word for the size claim.
Zelkova serrata comes from Japan, Korea and eastern China, and North American cities lean on it as a substitute for the American elms that Dutch elm disease wiped out, since it takes a similar vase shape without the vulnerability. Most of the ones planted for that reason are still young. This one has had long enough to become the kind of specimen a register bothers to single out by name.
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10
The Towering Norwegian
Norway Spruce (Picea abies) · not documented · West Spokane
At 123 feet, Spokane's Heritage Tree Register calls this Norway spruce the second tallest of its kind in the city, and names the tree that beats it: a spruce on 26th Avenue in the Rockwood Historic District, planted in the same era and standing a few feet taller by the register's own account.
Norway spruce is a European transplant, planted across American parks and gardens for its speed and its shape rather than for any native claim to the Inland Northwest. This one grows among the champions and rarities Finch Arboretum has collected since the 1940s, sharing the grounds with the state's largest white willow and two of the first dawn redwoods ever brought to the continent.
Only the register has looked at it. No second source names the tree or checks its height, so take the 123 feet as one institution's measurement rather than a settled fact, the same caution this page gives its neighbours here.
It stands a short walk from the willow and the redwoods, one more stop in an afternoon that is already worth the trip.
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11
Powerful Pine
Mexican Pinyon Pine (Pinus cembroides) · not documented · West Spokane
Mexican pinyon pine belongs on a dry mountainside in the American Southwest, not in a Spokane arboretum with a state-record willow and Chinese dawn redwoods for neighbours. The city's Heritage Tree Register names this one among the largest of its kind anywhere in Washington, a low, broad-crowned pine spreading more than 40 feet across on a trunk only about 33 feet tall.
That shape is the species doing what it always does. Pinus cembroides grows slow and wide rather than tall, built for wind and drought rather than for competing with taller trees for light, which is close to the opposite of everything else growing around it at Finch Arboretum.
Only the register has recorded it, and no second account has come forward to confirm the figures or the ranking. Treat "one of the largest in the state" as one institution's claim rather than a settled fact, the same caution due every single-sourced tree on this page.
Find it near the willow and the redwoods, a short walk that makes an afternoon of it.
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12
Chief Garry Park Champion
Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) · not documented · East Central Spokane
Spokane's Heritage Tree Register calls this sycamore maple a candidate for the state size record: 56 feet tall, plain green leaves, standing in Chief Garry Park on its own, away from any of this page's other clusters.
It is not the only large sycamore maple in Spokane's tree records. A 2012 survey by historian Laura Arksey separately names a variegated sycamore maple, its leaves patched cream rather than plain green, at the former Amasa B. Campbell estate in Browne's Addition, and calls that one the largest of its particular form in the state. The two are different trees in different neighbourhoods; the register entry for this one records no variegation, so the two should not be merged into one.
Sycamore maple is a European species, planted across American cities for its tolerance of poor soil and city air rather than for its looks. A 56-foot specimen large enough to be named a state size candidate is a fair reason to detour through a park most visitors would otherwise skip.
Only the register has measured it, and no second source has confirmed the figures or the ranking. If you know its girth or its age, tell us.
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13
The Littleleaf Linden
Linden (Tilia sp., species disputed within the register's own record: title says Littleleaf Linden, description says American Linden) · roughly 110 years · South Hill (Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens)
Spokane's Heritage Tree Register cannot decide what this tree is. Its own record title calls it a littleleaf linden; the description field for the same entry calls it an American linden, a different species entirely. Littleleaf linden, Tilia cordata, is a small-leaved European import common on American streets. American linden, Tilia americana, is a native basswood with leaves nearly twice the size. Nobody has resolved which one is actually growing in the Moore-Turner gardens, and this page will not guess for them. If you can tell the two apart from the leaf, tell us.
What both records agree on is the history. The register dates it to the late 1890s, planted in the private garden Frank Rockwood Moore and Senator George Turner laid out before it was ever a public park, which makes it roughly the same age as the terraces and the disputed elm nearby. At around 110 years old and 29 feet tall, it is a modest tree next to the elm and the roses, the kind of planting that only gets noticed once somebody starts asking what everything in an old garden actually is.
The gardens keep seasonal hours: 16 May to 15 September, Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 3:30pm, locked the rest of the year.
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