What's the story of Austin's Treaty Oak?
KUT 90.5 | By Mose Buchele
Published April 28, 2022 at 5:01 AM CDT
https://www.kut.org/austin/2022-04-28/wh...tins-treaty-oak


An old oak tree with limbs branching off in different directions.
Michael Minasi/KUT
Austin's Treaty Oak, near Fifth Street and Lamar, nearly died after being poisoned in 1989.

This piece was originally produced for the ATXplained Live show in January 2020.

Austin’s Treaty Oak is a tree, but it’s also a story. It’s the kind of tale that’s recounted in children’s plays, like Austin’s version of the first Thanksgiving.

The story goes that around 600 years ago, a seed fell to the ground and grew into a mighty oak. It was one of a group of trees known as the Council Oaks because tribal meetings happened there. This special tree was said to have magical properties. One legend says that if you made tea with its acorns or leaves you would become invincible in battle; another held that drinking the tea made you a faithful lover.

The tree gained new significance after the Anglo colonists showed up. Stephen F. Austin is said to have signed a treaty with local tribes under the oak, granting it its name.

None of this really happened. (Or, if you prefer, there seems to be no evidence that it did.)

What’s more likely is that the Treaty Oak, on land that’s now near Fifth Street and Lamar, is part of an American tradition of declaring some trees special to protect them from the woodsman’s ax.

A legend grows

What we know to be true is that in the early 1900s, the oak was threatened. Austin had grown, and the farmer who owned the land around the tree could no longer afford the taxes. She had to sell, but she didn’t want the tree chopped down. A movement started up to save the tree, spearheaded by women’s groups. They shared the legends, held fundraisers and, in 1937, they got the city to preserve the Treaty Oak.

For the good part of a century, it stood on its specially designated lot, growing in stature and reputation. People visited the oak for picnics, school field trips and wedding proposals.

People retold the legends of the tree. Then, in 1989, someone decided to kill it.

The poisoning

“It was Texas Independence Day, and I noticed that there was some dead grass around the tree,” John Giedraitis, the city forester at the time, recalls.
He first thought a parks’ employee had used a little too much herbicide around the Treaty Oak. Not that big a deal, but the tree started looking really sick, so he decided to test the soil around it.-- excerpt, rest at link above --