The Creek Council Oak Tree

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.