The old-growth oaks we hold so dear

One of the old-growth oaks on Elizabeth Court came down recently. (Photo by Christine Vernon)

A remnant of the old oak savanna can be found on Elizabeth Court, Forest and Kenilworth avenues, south of Chicago Avenue. (DAVID PIERINI/Staff Photographer)

The Heritage Oak Project map plots the remaining oak forest.

The exact location is unknown but the original Fair Oaks Subdivision was bounded by Oak Park, Ridgeland, Augusta, and Chicago. Scoville Avenue becomes Fair Oaks Avenue north of Chicago Avenue. (Courtesy Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest)

Oak Park and River Forest lie within a magnificent forest, and the tall canopy creates a sense of soulful beauty. In our busy lives, we may forget to look up and witness these arboreal beauties. They have marked time, have been with us through our history, and their own story to tell.

Heritage pre-settlement oak trees are part of the last 10,000 years of our area’s history. Some of the descendents of these ancient oaks are still with us, retaining rich genetic information. Archaeology, meanwhile, provides clues as to how these trees were able to root and flourish in this soil for so long. 

An easy way to get an evolutionary snapshot is to walk the labyrinth in Mills Park. On a recent trip, my young friend Emem and I traveled from pre-history to the present. Our goal is to memorize all the information on the stones. 

The labyrinth at the western edge of the park is the inspired design of John Mac Manus and Josephine Bellalta of Altamanu, hired by the Park District of Oak Park to do the Mills Park renovation in 2012. The labyrinth illustrates the immense changes in Oak Park where Mother Nature worked her magic, and where oaks were eventually able to root and thrive through the millennia.

Deep in our prehistory, this area supported volcanoes, then a sea that gave rise to single-celled animals, to a coral reef, to larger animals that eventually inhabited the land. Moving along the evolutionary chain, Emem and I marvel at the different ecosystems that developed, supporting saber-tooth tigers in what are now our backyards!

Ancient Lake Chicago, an ancestor of Lake Michigan, was a huge glacial lake that covered much of the area. Its sandy shore created a ridge that runs through Mills, Scoville and Taylor parks. The street Ridgeland was named for this geologically significant ridge, which also serves as a continental divide. The Wisconsin Ice Age lasted 100,000 years from 110,000 years ago to 10,000 BCE. (Some speculate that it returned last winter.) Wooly mammoths and mastodons lived in this area and Stone Age native peoples (from the Archaic era, 10,000 BCE) hunted them successfully with their stone weapons. The Forest Park Public Library has some teeth, bones and tusk fragments from these prehistoric animals. 

One of the labyrinth stone pavers teaches that from “8000 BCE until 1850 CE the oak savanna covered Oak Park.” A savanna is a mixture of trees and prairie grasses growing together. I asked Emem if she’d like to go on an adventure and find some of these ancient oak trees in Oak Park. Off we went to Elizabeth Court and Forest and Kenilworth avenues in search of these amazing creatures. 

Hiding in plain sight we easily found some of these old oaks, which were part of the native oak-hickory savanna forest. These heritage trees range from 150 to 280 years old. Some have survived the entire span of our towns’ development. 

They are not only testaments to the magnificence of creation, but they have much to teach us about survival, adaptability and sustainability. 

Singular species

These long-lived outgrowths have a distinctive silhouette, unlike any of our other trees: large, gnarly, dark, atmospheric. They grow amid the houses in the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District, and in other places in Oak Park, River Forest and Forest Park, especially around the Des Plaines River. There are at least 170 of these historic oak trees, the oldest of which, a bur oak, is about 280 years old. 

Mark Duntemann of Natural Path Urban Forestry Consultants recently gave an excellent presentation on the Heritage Oak Project, citing these stats and so much more. He researched the first surveyor’s map of the area, the township map of 1821. Duntemann superimposed the remaining heritage oaks on the map.

“We estimate that there are about 170 remnant trees left,” Duntemann said. “Through village, park district and resident participation, we mapped about 115.”

The civic engagement project, he said, was developed to assess and map the trees and then inform the respective owners and the community of the existence and ecological/cultural value of the trees and the individual and collective roles needed to maintain them.

“Of the approximately 90 residents who have large oaks on their property,” Duntemann noted, “we got permission from about half to enter their property and map their trees. I am grateful for their participation and encourage the remaining residents to contact me to add to the list.”

HOPP

These hardwood trees of the north woods, originally part of a savanna, a mixture of trees and prairie, are now growing in an urban environment. The hardwood trees of the area are oaks (bur, white, red, pin, swamp, white), hickory, basswood (also known as linden), and maple. Other trees, of course, also flourish, with the notable, painful exceptions of ash and American elms, which have been decimated by invasive insects. 

Certified arborist and former Village Forestry Commission member Kathryn Jonas, along with Julie Samuels, had the vision to preserve the genetic material from our pre-settlement oak trees, since these trees are nearing the end of their lifespan. Along with the Morton Arboretum and the Openlands West Suburban TreeKeepers program, they created the Historic Oak Propagation Project (HOPP). 

HOPP propagated trees from acorns collected from these 200-300 year-old native Oak Park bur oaks, remnants of the pre-European oak-hickory savanna. There are now 50 of these trees on residents’ properties, 50 on the parkways, and eight planted by students at District 97 schools. For more information contact Jonas at 312-203-9880. The history, tenacity and wisdom of sustainability contained within these baby oaks are so much more powerful than nursery oak trees. 

Native peoples were kinder to trees than the white settlers. These Stone-Age peoples, because of their lack of metal technology and their embodied spirituality of deep connection to the web of life, respected the life and spirit of the trees. But they felled some trees, using controlled burning at their bases, and then chopped them down with stone tools. 

The bur oak at 427 N. Kenilworth was probably a Native American Witness Tree of the Potawatomi tribe, a marker tree to lead the way back home to the Des Plaines River, after a day of hunting. 

The first white settlers in Oak Park were Joseph and Betty Kettlestrings in 1833. According to Frank Lipo, executive director of the Historical Society of OP-RF, these earliest European settlers from England sought land after the native peoples were pushed west of the Mississippi River by the 1833 Treaty of Chicago (following the Black Hawk War). They were seeking good, well-drained soil; timber; water for drinking and farm use; and accessibility via water or early trails. 

As the Kettlestrings drove with three small children in an ox-drawn covered wagon from Chicago, they had a hard time moving through the wet marshy soil of Chicago. However they had a friend who owned the new sawmill on the Des Plaines River near present-day Lake Street (once an Indian trail), which was turning the nearby trees into boards for use in Chicago and some of the other new towns springing up. Pioneer accounts by the Kettlestrings and their descendants say they came upon a sandy ridge that rose a little above the swampy prairie to the east, which was covered by oaks and other trees. This gave the early pioneer hamlet the nicknames “Oak Ridge” or “Kettlestrings Grove,” according to a number of early sources. 

Oak Park, of course, is named after these mighty oaks. Our other early settler, James Scoville, reportedly stopped in the oak grove at the top of the ridge, which provided a fine view of the surrounding countryside (minues all those buildings) in what is now Scoville Park. He liked it so much he built his house where the war memorial now stands. 

White settlers cut down trees for lumber since these old hardwood trees made perfect building material for homes, floors, businesses, equipment and furniture. These homes and furniture are still prized and passed from generation to generation. 

Jonas notes that other trees were removed for development, and some died because of changes caused by development and urbanization. 

Oaks in this area have proven resilient to disease. Oak tree life spans depend on many factors, including type, site conditions, and moisture levels. White oaks tend to live longer than red oaks. 

Duntemann says the oldest oak tree on private property is 280 years old, and the oldest parkway tree, in front of 427 N. Kenilworth, is estimated to be 230. Trees are dated, Jonas says, by a formula developed by the International Society of Arboriculture and the Morton Arboretum. Short of cutting trees down, there is no way to date a tree precisely unless you bore through the tree which is not considered acceptable in the industry.

Arboreal bonds

Christine Vernon, who has lived for many years on Elizabeth Court, Oak Park’s shortest and least-straight street, has heritage oaks in her backyard. 

“These old-growth trees have a power,” she observes. “There’s a feeling in the air. They have many things to teach us. Trees comfort us in summer with their shade, and inspire us with their endurance during the desolation of winter. You get to know these trees and your appreciation, affection, respect and awe increases for them. But Oak Park needs a reforestation plan.”

One of the oak trees in her next-door neighbor’s yard was recently taken down, a sad event for anyone who has lived with them for so long. The hole an old-growth oak leaves is pronounced.

Many people feel the power and spirit of trees and have an emotional and spiritual link to them. Healthy old trees have a special energy. Whether from a pagan perspective, simply being a nature lover, or seeing trees as part of God’s magnificent creation, Oak Parkers and River Foresters appreciate their trees and (quoting Machaelle Small Wright) “behave as if the God in all life mattered.” 

Many feel that trees have an impact on health and inner peace. Beatrice DeFranco, a local teacher and energy practitioner of QiGong, TaiChi and YoGong teaches about tree chi (energy) from a Chinese medical perspective. She reminds us to connect with the right tree and feel the flow of circulating energy since we are in relationship with that tree. As tall and as broad as trees are, their roots go down as deep and as wide, an image to reflect on when you’re in front of a favorite tree. 

Stephen Sinatra, M.D., a nationally known holistic cardiologist, encourages the practice of grounding to the earth with bare feet, to receive the earth’s energy and reduce inflammation throughout the body, including the heart and circulatory systems. An added benefit is grounding or “earthing” with your spine against a magnificent tree. 

Morton Arboretum’s Hug-A-Tree program raises consciousness about the many benefits of planting trees, including creating beauty, making us healthier, helping to clean the air, and muffling busy city streets. The program reminds us that large, mature trees do us the most service; therefore, it’s wise to care for our trees so they live long lives. These old oaks tell us we’ve done a good job, but more stewardship is needed.

For the 30th year in a row, the village of Oak Park has been named a Tree City USA community by the Arbor Day Foundation. In the midst of highly varied tree species, a few heritage oak trees still stand tall within our urban forest. 

Local residents honor trees in myriad ways and foster a stronger identification. Other trees are dying in our villages, and residents grieve this enormous loss. We are all stewards of trees and of life. Look up, and learn from their story of energy, beauty, soul and sustainability.