__The Question: Which is the oldest tree in your neighborhood, and what has it seen?__
The two largest trees in my front yard were massive oak trees that have seen a lot of history. That yard was along North Kingshighway or El Camino Real, a road established by the Spanish in the 1700s. But it was a route of travel long before that.
The smaller, if you can call it that, of the oak trees blew down when a tornado went overhead in the spring of 1957. The age of that tree was determined to be around 250 years old. The larger and gnarlier oak was probably older which would put it first sprout in the 1600s.
The Chickasaw Indians occupied the Southeastern corner of what is now Missouri, the location of my hometown. Long before the Spanish and French in what became the Louisiana Territory, the Indians traveled routes inland from the Mississippi River. My hometown was built on a long flat ridge that was originally a sandbar at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and it was surrounded by swamps. That Indian trail along that ridge running north from New Madrid became El Camino Real when the tree was about 100-years-old.
1859 brought the first railroad to cross that ridge, and the following year John Sikes founded the town of Sikeston at the intersection of the Cairo and Fulton (Texas) Railroad and El Camino Real. The 1900s brought expanded travel and the creation of a highway along what had been an Indian trail. Route 9 was established in 1922 from Arkansas to Iowa largely along El Camino Real. US 61 replaced Route 9 in 1926.
So what did the mighty oak witness?
Other than abundant wild animals, I witnessed the Chickasaw and probably Choctaw Indians and others passing by or camping under my canopy. I witnessed the Spanish and French as they traveled through their territory going from New Orleans to St. Louis. In the mid-1800s heavily laden wagons drawn by oxen would pass by going from family farms to the river at New Madrid. There would be wagons, carriages, and buggies followed by sputtering automobiles.
Houses would spring up on the street starting in the late 1800s with “my” house being built in 1910. “Daddy” Felker bought the house in 1927, and the family lived there for 30 years. I watched the D.A.R. place a vertical pink granite marker across the street. It read “El Camino Real – New Madrid, Cape Girardeau, Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis - Erected by the Missouri Daughters of the American Revolution A.D. 1915” For 20 years, 2 long chains hung from one of my arms to a swing seat. Through the decades and storms some of my mighty arms were broken …but yet I stand.
When my house was built the address was 612 North New Madrid Street. A few or several years later they changed it to 612 North Kingshighway. I remember a big wedding party there in 1935, and some time later they renumbered everything and changed the house’ number to 411 North Kingshighway. It seems they could never decide where I lived.
Cars continued to get bigger, faster, and shinier; the first Corvette in Southeast Missouri drove past me in 1954. There was even a gunfight here in 1956 between two escaped convicts and the local police… while a post-graduation party was underway at my house.
This oak put up with the ear splitting noise of a straight-pipe on Harry’s 1938 Chevrolet each morning as he headed off to school or work. I watched the family home become the Board of Education office then a home for people needing supervised care. Finally in 2005 I watched the house burn and the green grass appear again. My little brother died during that tornado in 1957… I miss him.
Written by Harry G. Sharp III and The Gnarly Oak Tree