Dwight's Linden of Finch Arboretum

Finch Arboretum used to be somebody's houses. Before that, on the ground where this linden stands, it was pioneer Daniel H. Dwight's own planting, and the tree outlasted both. The Spokane Heritage Tree Register lists it as a Hungarian linden, a species you will not find on many American streets, standing about 72 feet tall and somewhere around a century old. HistoryLink's 2012 survey of the city's champion and historic trees names the same tree, the same planter and the same species, citing a tree survey by Dr. Edward Lester. Two records, a register and a historian, agreeing on one linden. Dwight is the reason the arboretum exists at all: his family gave part of the original ground. The tree that carries his name is not the biggest or the oldest thing here, next to the state champion white willow and the first dawn redwoods planted nearby, but it is the one still standing from before this was a park. Nobody has published a girth for it, so treat the century figure as the register's own estimate rather than a measured fact. If you have taped the trunk, tell us.