The biggest oaks in this cemetery were already growing when the United States Constitution was signed in 1787, by the reckoning of the Texas Historic Tree Coalition and the Dallas Express.
Post Oak
Quercus stellata
The post oak is a slow-growing oak with hard, dense wood, which is why it so often turns out to be the oldest thing left on ground that has been farmed, grazed and built over. We map 3 of them, in 2 cities.
Downtown Dallas keeps a whole grove of them in Pioneer Park Cemetery, among the last of the Post Oak Savanna left in any city, over the graves of its founding families. By one local reckoning the oldest are around 250 years, and in 2023 the City Council protected the stand as one of Dallas's first Historic Tree designations. The county's biggest single post oak grows in a one-acre pioneer cemetery on Military Parkway, 4.22 metres round and undated. In Fort Worth, one behind a stop sign has been spared by road crews on numerous occasions; the city's register calls it likely one of the oldest trees in Fort Worth, and gives no figure.
Dallas
The biggest post oak in Dallas County stands in a one-acre pioneer cemetery on Military Parkway, and nobody has dated it.
Fort Worth
Road crews have come for this corner more than once, and every time the post oak has been left standing.
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