Photos, Videos, Podcasts
Radio Interview with Oak Tree Litigation Update for Last 15 Minutes (9/12/2024)
Podcast from KAOS Parallel University featuring an oak tree litigation update (the last 15 minutes of the interview) and a discussion of a recent change in state land use laws that could result in the paving over of one of the last remaining remnants of the Cowlitz Trail, which is on forestland a mile south of the oak tree. The interviewees are Ronda Larson Kramer and Marianne Tompkins.
Radio Interview on the Cowlitz Trail and the Davis Meeker Oak (9/22/2024)
September 22, 2024, KAOS Podcast-Make No Bones About It, about Native American history and the Cowlitz Trail and Davis Meeker oak, featuring Ronda Larson Kramer, Cowlitz Tribe historian Mike Iyall, Michelle Peterson, and Cowlitz Tribe elder Greg LaDue-Grove.
Photo credit: Brian Frisina
2024-09-08 Casey Neill
Radio Interview on the Fight to Save the Davis Meeker Oak (6/27/2024)
Podcast from KAOS Parallel University gong in-depth on the exciting last-minute save of the tree. The interviewees are Ronda Larson Kramer, Michelle Peterson, and Beowulf Brower
1984 - The road is moved to save the tree
Spring 1984. Photo by Karen Fraser
In 1984, the county owned the tree. The county road department wanted to make safety improvements to Old Highway 99 and asked the county commissioners for permission to cut down the tree.
Several citizens testified that the tree should be saved. Jack Davis was an eminent leader of environmental issues in the area. He was soft spoken and well-respected. He and others provided public testimony to the county commissioners, one of whom was Karen Fraser (who later became a state senator). She recently spoke to Ronda Larson Kramer and recalled how it came about: "So those of us who live there, we saw that if you cut the tree down, it changes the whole landscape. So we directed the road department to save the tree and do what they could and to put up a safety barrier. It passed unanimously. . . . And Jack Davis had a lot of credibility and everyone respected his perspective." The county then moved the road to give the tree space.
Among those who asked the county to save the tree in 1984 was Scott Baker. He is one of the fathers of the modern risk assessment methodology. He owns Tree Solutions, which is the company that evaluated the tree in 2023 at the request of the Tumwater city arborist. At that time Mr. Baker's employee wrote that the tree had slightly more wood than was needed to support the tree and that if the tree was to be retained, it should be managed as a veteran tree.
But the city arborist's final recommendation contradicted this and recommended that the tree be cut down. Mr. Baker later wrote an email to the city and called the city arborist's own risk assessment an "embarrassment to any knowledgeable arborist."
2024 - See How the Tree Has Grown!
June 28, 2024. Photo by Wayne Shreckengosh.
Photo by Ronelle Funk, January 12, 2019, at 9:32 am.
Old Highway 99 Reroute Plan
by Professor Robert Van Pelt
July 8, 2024. Photo by Robert Van Pelt, of California
How to move the road. Professor Robert Van Pelt, a forest ecologist known as Big Tree Bob, is an artist and global authority on champion trees. He specializes in quantitative ecology at the University of Washington's School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.
Descendants Meet for First Time
August 14, 2024, Photo by Bellamy Pailthorp, KPLU Reporter
Left to Right: Brandon Staff (descendant of pioneers George and Isabella Bush), Ray Gleason (arborist), Ronda Larson Kramer (attorney), Jim Thomas (descendant of pioneer T. J. Harper), David Nicandri (historian and Tumwater Historical Commission member), and dog Gus.
According to family oral history, Brandon Staff's ancestor George Bush told Jim Thomas's ancestor T. J. Harper and Harper's Oregon Trail party (which included Ezra Meeker) to camp under the big tree northwest of Bush's farm. He told the party that the surrounding prairie would provide browse for their livestock and a small lake just to the east would be a convenient place to water the stock. Jim Thomas's family believes that the Davis-Meeker oak, the largest in the area, is the one they camped under. Descendants Brandon and Jim met each other for the first time on August 14, 2024 at the Davis Meeker oak, which most likely was that tree.
Young Kestrels at the Tree
