Thomasville bought a corner lot in 1966 to give one live oak a park of its own. The Big Oak has stood at Crawford and Monroe streets since around 1680, by the local history centre's estimate, and its crown now spreads 169 feet. Trucks have taken limbs off it three times. The city answers with cables, columns, lightning protection, a yearly inspection and a phone number that triggers a camera across the street, so visitors can photograph themselves beneath it.
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Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) · 300 years · Downtown Thomasville
Dial the number posted by the Big Oak and a camera across the street takes your picture with it. Thomasville treats this tree the way other towns treat a courthouse.
It earned that. The local history centre's curator puts its start around 1680, while admitting the date is not exact, so call it over 300 years. Its crown spreads 169 feet, it stands about 72 feet tall, and the trunk measures roughly 28 feet round; the marker says 27.5, and heights vary by source. When it joined the Live Oak Society in 1936, as the 49th member, the girth was 21 feet 6 inches.
In 1966 the city bought the corner lot outright to make a park around it, the Elizabeth Ireland Poe Park. Traffic has been the real threat. Trucks clipped its limbs in 1973, in 1975 and again in 2005, and today city Public Works and arborists inspect it every year and keep it on cables, columns and a lightning protection system.
One story told about it does not hold: local historian Jack Hadley has said it was never a lynching tree.
It is free and open, at Crawford and Monroe streets in the middle of town.
Photo: Jud McCranie (CC BY-SA 4.0)