New Risk Assessment Says Oak Tree Is Healthy

DATELINE— TUMWATER, WA

Five months after the Court of Appeals reversed a superior court judge who had given the Tumwater mayor unfettered authority to cut down a 400-year-old oak tree, a citizen's group is again celebrating. This time, a new tree risk assessment has confirmed what the citizen's group has been saying all along: the Davis Meeker oak is healthy.

The risk assessment by Todd Prager & Associates was thorough, unlike the original risk assessment by Kevin McFarland in 2023 that claimed the beloved tree should be cut down.

The second risk assessment came about due to substantial community pressure, especially from Cowlitz Tribe members and the Nisqually Tribe, as well as pressure from Tumwater City Councilmembers, all during a historic city council meeting that lasted well into the night due to the large number of people testifying.

In agreeing to order a more thorough risk assessment, Mayor Debbie Sullivan stated, "I take great value in my relationship with all of the tribes." You can watch the inspiring testimony from the June 4, 2024, city council meeting here: Tumwater Oak Testimony - YouTube

The tree is on the Tumwater Register of Historic Places and had been used by Native Americans for hundreds of years to guide them as they traveled on the Cowlitz Trail, a trade route used for thousands of years.

The tree later guided settlers making their way north on the Oregon Trail. Many of those pioneers stopped at the nearby farm of wealthy pioneers Isabella and George Bush, a beloved and generous mixed-race couple who were in a wagon train from Missouri that included the first group of settlers to put down roots in Tumwater.

Isabella ("Ibby") Bush had strong connections with the local Coast Salish people, likely including the Cowlitz People, who had brought the Bush family and other settlers up the Cowlitz River by canoe in October 1845. Ibby and George named their last child "Lewis Nisqually." 

Ibby was an educated woman who home-schooled their boys in Missouri, since the law there excluded the Bush children from all public schools. Later, during the early years on Bush Prairie, she conducted the region's first school in her home.

She became fluent in the Coast Salish language and housed Indian orphans until the tribes could find suitable foster parents. Isabella was also known as a vigorous and highly capable nurse, and she worked tirelessly to care for the Native Americans who were devastated by new diseases brought by the American settlers who had immunity. See here for more information on Isabella.

A descendant of one of the pioneers who came to Tumwater related this story about his ancestors' encounter with the Bush family, a giant oak tree that may have been the Davis Meeker oak, and nearby Swamp Lake: "Mr. Bush suggested that they camp under the giant oak tree on unclaimed land just northwest of his home.  He said the surrounding prairie would provide browse for the livestock and a small lake, just to the east, would be a convenient place to water the stock.  My family believes that the Davis-Meeker oak, the largest in the area, is the one they camped under."

The Davis Meeker oak is located at 7527 Old Highway 99, Tumwater, Washington.

Map created by Ronda Larson Kramer using February 11, 1854 survey plat map of Township 17N Range 2W, from the General Land Office Records from the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management.