The stones at the foot of this oak carry a single date, 1918-02-16, the day Lithuania declared its independence. The tree was planted to mark an anniversary of it. Which anniversary is still argued over in Šilalė. The local historian Kazimieras Šetkus put the planting in 1937, for the twentieth. Another account puts it in 1927 or 1928, for the tenth. That leaves the oak somewhere between 89 and 99 years old, young by the standards of this map and chosen for what it stands for rather than its size: 2.40 metres round and 15 metres tall. What it has lived through is the point. Planted as a symbol of a young state, it stood through the Soviet decades when that date could not be celebrated, and was still there when it could be again. The town made it a natural heritage object in 2006. Its enemy now is traffic. It grows on an island in the middle of a busy junction, and road salt and passing lorries have been hard on it. Since 2018 the municipality has been nursing it back: replacing the soil, mulching the roots, pulling out old wire, and shielding it from salt each winter. It is the first stop of an afternoon in Šilalė. The memorial grove for 13 January 1991 stands 90 metres away across the same junction, and two far bigger oaks wait in the countryside around Kaltinėnai, 16 kilometres out.
Traffic island at the J. Basanavičiaus / Nepriklausomybės street intersection, central Šilalė You can recognise it by the stones at its base inscribed 1918-02-16, on an oak 2.40 metres round and 15 metres tall. It stands on the traffic island at the Basanavičiaus and Nepriklausomybės junction.
Free; public street island in the town centre, no gate or fee, though it stands amid busy traffic
Central Šilalė, walkable from anywhere in town; the closest bus stops serve regional routes