Heritage Tree list branches out to include three new beauties

Heritage Tree list branches out to include three new beauties

Published on November 03, 2024

Three new trees were added to Fort Worth's Heritage Tree program at Texas Arbor Day ceremonies on Friday.

Why it matters: The Heritage Tree program promotes public awareness that trees are a living and distinct resource for the Fort Worth community. The program is administered by the Park & Recreation Department's Forestry Section.

View an interactive map of the honored trees.

These trees make up the 2024 class of Heritage Trees:

Camp Bowie Arizona ash (Fraxinus velutina)

While not particularly old by most tree standards at 60-70 years, this giant Arizona ash in the Crestline Area is quite old for its species.

Ash trees are now particularly vulnerable due to the presence of an invasive pest known as emerald ash borer (EAB). First discovered in Tarrant County in 2018, though likely present several years earlier, EAB is a small, shiny green beetle devastating ash tree populations across much of the country.

The Camp Bowie Arizona ash grows in the front yard of a Crestline-area home that was built on the grounds of the division headquarters for Historic Camp Bowie. Constructed in 1917, Camp Bowie served as the training camp for the 36th Infantry Division, which deployed to France during World War I. Following demobilization of the camp in 1919, the land was quickly claimed for development and Arlington Heights Blvd was renamed Camp Bowie Boulevard to honor the encampment.

More verification is needed on behalf of the Texas A&M Forest Service, but the Camp Bowie Arizona ash is so large that it may turn out to be a new champion tree - the largest of its kind in all of Texas.

Millennium Tree, bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa)

This beautiful bur oak on the east end of the Tarrant County Courthouse facing Commerce Street was planted to celebrate the start of the third millennium, which began Jan. 1, 2001.

The installation was conceived by the Fort Worth Millennium Committee - a collection of community leaders who planned events and functions across the city with a nod towards honoring Fort Worth's past while looking to the future with hope and optimism.

The tree was provided and planted by the Fort Worth Park & Recreation Department's Forestry Section and ceremonially mulched by local schoolchildren and civic leaders during a formal celebration in November 2019.

In a Fort Worth Star-Telegram feature detailing the event, Karen Barr, wife of then-mayor Kenneth Barr, said: "The roots of this tree symbolize our past and our heritage. The leaves represent future growth - the growth that today's children will bring about in the next century."

After a few earlier structures lost to fire or lack of space, the Tarrant County Courthouse as we largely know it today was constructed in 1895 using pink granite from Central Texas and on the former site of a modest military outpost.

TCU Original Oak (Quercus fusiformis)

This beautiful live oak proudly spreads its canopy across the middle of campus at Texas Christian University, just west of University Drive and northeast of TCU's Reed Hall.

The turf near the tree is adorned with a small plaque, dedicated in 2011, stating: "Original Oak Tree: The only tree present on the new TCU campus was this Live Oak transplanted 'from the forest' by the class of 1912."

After temporarily accommodating students in a downtown building through 1910, the TCU campus opened the first buildings on the current campus in 1911.

The Class of 1912 was the first group of students to graduate from TCU's permanent Fort Worth campus. This group of seniors worked with the Texas Shade Tree Co. in the spring of 1912 to have a large live oak transplanted "from the forest" nearby to the campus grounds and thus established the Original Oak - the first tree in the beautiful, tree-covered landscape that is enjoyed today.

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Tagged as:

• Environment
• Honors & Celebrations