Pine Street Oak, one of Madison's oldest trees, falls to storms (2024)

Power lines can be repaired, storm damage cleaned up, but when the centuries-old white oak tree on Pine and Hickory streets fell, all the neighbors could do was say goodbye.

The oak, documented as one of the oldest trees in Madison, toppled to the ground during intense storms Tuesday, crushing the car of its homeowner and blocking the street over which it once towered.

“We’ve got so many people who bike past here, walk past here, drive past here,” said Debbie Thorp, whose family has lived in the house with the tree for three generations and lovingly tended to the neighborhood landmark.

Throughout the years, “They stop. They look at the tree, take pictures,” said Thorp, whose home is near Wingra Creek on Madison’s South Side. “This is just heart-breaking.”

The tree’s demise brought out droves of neighbors, many of whom expressed wonder and sorrow at the sight of its vast, hollow trunk and healthy branches sprawled across the pavement and onto the top of Thorp’s black Ford Escape that was parked on the street.

To Thorp, the tree was a lifelong friend. Her parents, Betty and Duane Smith, bought the two-story home on the corner of Hickory and Pine streets in 1950, two years before she was born.

“I think my mother bought this house because of that tree,” Thorp said. She and her daughter, Dawn Line, now reside there, and a grandchild lived there for a while, marking four generations.

During her childhood, “There was a branch that went out across the backyard and then it had a ‘V’ in it that went across the street,” Thorp said.

“We had a platform up there that we called our fort. And we had swings hanging from it, and all sorts of things. There’s a picture somewhere of four, five of us kids sitting up on that branch.”

The oak was also documented in history books and newspapers. As neighbors gathered in her yard Wednesday morning, Line brought out a yellowed news clipping from 1976, published for the nation’s bicentennial, that displayed a photo of the historic tree with her grandmother standing beside it.

“I had such respect for that tree. I knew it for probably 50 years at this point,” Allison said in a phone call Tuesday. “It was probably one of the oldest and most remarkable white oaks in the city, probably the county.”

The tree was likely part of the native oak savannah in the area that predated Wisconsin’s statehood and even the founding of the United States, Allison said.

“That group of elders is now leaving us, but that area was filled with oaks, mostly bur oaks and white oaks,” he said. For more than two centuries, it provided animal habitat, shade, soil preservation and in modern times likely absorbed some 100 pounds of carbon dioxide every year, he said.

Love and concern

In his book, Allison credited the homeowners’ “love and concern for the tree’s well-being as if it were a neighbor and friend.” The book also recalls how Thorp’s family decorated its trunk with a yellow ribbon in celebration of the return of U.S. hostages from Iran in January 1981, a nod to the popular Tony Orlando song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree.”

From her grandmother on down, caring for the oak was a family responsibility, Line said. Many years ago, the city wanted to widen Hickory Street and install curb and gutter, she said, “but my grandma said no, because you’ll cut down the tree. So they did a poll on Hickory Street and all the neighbors said no, no,” keep the tree.

Though the trunk had been hollowed out by age, the tree’s huge limbs were still solid and thriving, Thorp said.

“She bloomed beautifully this year,” said Line. “The foliage was just outstanding.”

Dreaded sound

Around 8 or 9 p.m. Tuesday, Thorp heard a “crack, crack, crack” sound as winds thrashed the region and Madison was under a severe thunderstorm warning. She knew — and dreaded — that the sound had to be from the old oak, she said.

About five years ago, she said, when a large limb fell off the tree, she asked the city workers who removed it if she could have a small piece of cut wood as a souvenir. “But they said no, we have to take it all,” she recalled, noting that the historic oak would likely be ground into mulch.

By noon Wednesday, trucks were at the corner removing the tree. City forester Ian Brown, reached late Wednesday afternoon, said that emergency crews had been working nonstop since 9 p.m. Tuesday to clear Madison streets and remove fallen trees from homes.

Under current policy, trees are disposed of regardless of their historic value. But the possibility of a future “urban wood utilization program,” designed to repurpose wood from city trees, “is on my radar,” he said.

The crown of the white oak fell into the driveway of Thorp’s neighbors across the street, Rob Summerbell and Laura Zirngible, who before Tuesday night’s storm would look out at the tree every day from their kitchen window.

“People were always so arrested by the tree. They would just stop and take it in” while walking or biking down Hickory Street, Summerbell said.

A tiny oak still stands in the front yard of Thorp’s home. With Thorp’s permission, Summerbell planted it there a few years ago using an acorn from Madison’s tree-lined Orton Park.

“It’s got a ways to go, though,” he said. “A couple hundred years.”