What is the oldest tree in Oklahoma City?
Oklahoma City's most significant old tree is the Survivor Tree, an American elm of around 100 years standing at the Outdoor Symbolic Memorial of the Oklahoma City National Memorial, 620 N Harvey Avenue. Photographs of the site from the 1920s, when the ground was the back yard of a family home, show it already growing. Older trees very likely stand elsewhere in the city; none of them is recorded, and none of them is this one.
The tree stands on the north side of the Oklahoma City National Memorial at 620 N Harvey Avenue, downtown, above the Field of Empty Chairs and within the Gates of Time. The Outdoor Symbolic Memorial, which is where the tree is, is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and costs nothing. Only the separate indoor museum charges admission, and you do not need it to see the elm. What you find is one tree in a place built around it. The Rescuers' Orchard, planted with redbuds, maples and elms, stands around it, and seed is collected from the elm each year and grown on, with seedlings going to visitors and to partner sites elsewhere in the country. It is a working memorial rather than a park, and people come to it for reasons that have nothing to do with trees. Visit it as you would any memorial: quietly, and at your own pace. There is no charge, no ticket and no closing time.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.