The Big Oak
United StatesThomasvilleDowntown 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.
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Crawford Street at Monroe Street, Elizabeth Ireland Poe Park, Thomasville, GeorgiaYou can recognise it by a crown 169 feet across, held up by cables and columns, that fills a small corner park on its own. It stands in Elizabeth Ireland Poe Park at Crawford and Monroe streets.
Free, in a small public park (Elizabeth Ireland Poe Park) at the corner of Crawford and Monroe streets, downtown Thomasville. A posted phone number activates a remote camera across the street for a keepsake photo (WALB 2026).
No public transport; downtown Thomasville, street parking nearby (not verified).
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.