Friendship Oak facts for kids
The Friendship Oak is a very old southern live oak tree. It is about 500 years old! You can find it on the Gulf Park campus of the University of Southern Mississippi in Long Beach, Mississippi. This campus used to be a college just for women called Gulf Park College from 1921 to 1971.
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A Tree with a Story
The Friendship Oak started growing around the year 1487. This means it was a young tree when Christopher Columbus first explored the New World.
Legends and Famous Visitors
There's a special legend about the Friendship Oak. People say that if you stand under its branches, you and your friends will stay friends forever!
In the 1920s, a famous poet named Vachel Lindsay taught at Gulf Park College for Women. He would often read his poems to students right under the big branches of the Friendship Oak.
The Friendship Oak is also a very important tree to a group called the Live Oak Society. It was the 110th tree to be added to their list. When it was registered around 1940, its trunk was about 14 feet (4.3 meters) around!
In 1950, the tree was even shown in a famous magazine called Life. The article was about Gulf Park College, and it showed students having classes right under the tree.
How Big is Friendship Oak?
On August 22, 2011, experts from the Mississippi Forestry Commission measured the Friendship Oak. They found out some amazing things about its size:
- The tree stands about 59 feet (18 meters) tall.
- Its trunk is about 5.75 feet (1.75 meters) across.
- The distance around its trunk is almost 20 feet (6.0 meters)!
- Its branches spread out very wide, covering an area of 155 feet (47 meters).
- The main side branches reach out about 60 feet (18 meters) from the trunk.
- These big branches are about 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) around where they connect to the trunk.
- The tree's leafy top, called its crown, covers about 16,000 square feet (1486 square meters). That's a huge area!
- Its roots also spread out far, up to 150 feet (45.7 meters) from the tree.
A Special Tree for Many
Many people have chosen the Friendship Oak as a special place for their weddings. Most of these weddings have been for people who used to be students at Gulf Park College or the University of Southern Mississippi.
Over hundreds of years, strong hurricane winds have blown leaves off the Friendship Oak. Its roots have also been covered by saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico during big storm surges.
Even after powerful storms like Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Friendship Oak has survived. After these storms, acorns from the Friendship Oak were collected. These acorns were used to grow new oak trees to replant along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This helped replace other live oak trees that were destroyed by the hurricanes.
