The Big Tree at the Alamo

The most photographed tree at the Alamo arrived on a mule cart. It did not watch the 1836 battle, and it was not even growing here: in 1912 or 1913 the nurseryman Walter Whall dug up a live oak already around forty years old from a ranch outside town and hauled it whole to the Convento Courtyard, said to be the first transplant of its size anyone in San Antonio had attempted. It survived the move, it launched Whall a business shifting trees, and it has stood beside the old well for well over a century since. Add the head start and it comes to roughly 155 to 160 years. Locals just call it the Big Tree, and the name is about spread rather than height. It is 389 centimetres round and only about twelve metres tall, with a crown reaching some 27 metres across, more than twice its own height. Live oak wood is heavy enough that the tree's own limbs sag under themselves, so the branches are cabled and pruned to keep them off the limestone of the barracks wall. The Alamo is in the middle of a 400 million dollar rebuild of its plaza, running five years, and the tree is explicitly excluded from the works. Grounds and courtyards are free to walk into. Only the exhibits inside need a ticket.