The Washington Square Hackberry

Utah's champion hackberry is wider than it is tall. The state's Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands measured it in 2018 at 18.3 metres high, with a crown spreading 24.7 metres and a trunk 373 centimetres round, and the register lists it as a Heritage Tree as well as the biggest of its species in the state. A hackberry is a tree of the American interior, with warty grey bark and small berries the birds strip in autumn. This one grew into the shape of a shade tree. It stands at the southwest corner of Washington Square, the block that holds the Salt Lake City and County Building. That building had a turbulent start: its cornerstone was laid in July 1892, it was finished in 1894 after stoppages and a financial panic, and it was designed to rival the Salt Lake Temple as the city's architectural centrepiece. When Utah became a state in 1896 it served as the first state capitol, until the present Capitol opened in 1915. How much of that the hackberry was here for, nobody has written down. The square is public ground and free. An observation logged at this spot in May 2025 shows a tree standing there, which is the newest sign of life we have. Its neighbour about 15 metres away is the state's champion Ohio buckeye, narrower and slightly taller. Nobody has recorded its age. If you know when it was planted, tell us.