The Creek Council Oak Tree
How do I find it? You can recognise it by the lightning rods fitted to it in 1980 and by the Trail of Tears memorial beside it. It stands in Creek Nation Council Oak Park, a 1.86 acre park off South Cheyenne Avenue above the Arkansas River.
Tulsa was founded under this oak by 161 survivors of a march that began with 660 people. In 1836 the Lochapoka town of the Creek (Muscogee) Nation reached this rise above the Arkansas River at the end of their forced removal from Alabama. They scattered the ashes of their last ceremonial fire back east at the foot of the tree, lit a new fire, and made the ground under it their busk ground, their town hall, their church and their courthouse. The city grew outward from that fire. Nobody has settled what the tree itself is. One source calls it a post oak, the Tulsa Preservation Commission calls it a bur oak, and the identification is still open. Its age sits on the same footing. It was already a mature tree when the Lochapoka arrived, which puts a floor of at least 190 years under it and says nothing about the ceiling. Nobody has taped the trunk or published a figure. If you have, tell us. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976 and has carried lightning rods, fitted in 1980, ever since. The Muscogee Nation has held Council Oak Tree Day here every year since 1986, and the ground is theirs again: the City of Tulsa handed it back, dated to November 2024 in one account and to a return ceremony in November 2025 in another.
- Species
- Post Oak or Bur Oak (Quercus stellata or Quercus macrocarpa; sources disagree)
- Location
- 1750 South Cheyenne Avenue, Creek Nation Council Oak Park, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA (Riverview)
- Access
- Free, public city/tribal park (Creek Nation Council Oak Park, 1.86 acres), open to visitors; includes an ethno-horticultural garden and Trail of Tears memorial.
- Getting there
- Central Tulsa, Riverview neighbourhood overlooking the Arkansas River; no transit stop confirmed this pass, check current bus routes.
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Sources
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