The Anseman Oak

Victor Anseman was a florist who retired and then gave the last fifteen years of his life to a park. In 1891 he pulled together the business and political people of the city into the City Park Improvement Association, which is the reason there is a park here at all rather than a subdivision. He died in 1904 and they named this oak after him. It is a good choice of monument. The tree is given the same range as the McDonogh Oak, five hundred to nine hundred years, and some accounts make it the older of the two. Neither has been cored, so the order between them is a matter of who is doing the estimating. It stands at the western end of the same high strip of ground, just inside the entrance that also carries his name. The pin here marks the entrance rather than the trunk, because the grove holds hundreds of old oaks and pretending to know which metre is the one would be a promise this page cannot keep. Walk in from City Park Avenue opposite North Alexander and look for the biggest thing standing.