COLUMBUS — In the early morning of Sept. 8, a tree shed a limb. That would not be significant if it were not for the fact that the tree that shed the limb was officially the largest in Texas. This 500-plus-year-old Live Oak tree sits on private property in the Columbus city limits on 1340 Walnut Street. It has been visited by tourists and passed by so many times by locals that no one realized the shedding of the limb may have cost the old tree its coveted title bestowed upon it by the Texas Forest Service in 2016.
The celebrity tree could tell a tale or two as it shaded many a native Indian, a
sun-drenched cowboy, or a four-year-old boy named John Knesek. For mathemat -
ically challenged people, 500 years ago, the tree sprouted its leaves in the 1500s. Situated not too far from the Colorado River, one can only imagine what stories it could tell.
One such story comes from Columbus resident John Knesek. He spent his early years playing under the famous tree. Countless hours were spent under its shade as Knesek played under the tree, not realizing its ancient history and fu -
ture prominence. Knesek spent his later years research ing and measuring the stately tree and was instrumental in getting the grand dame of Live Oaks its title. He found that his grandparents, John Henry and Hortense Eugenia Foster, known as Scrimp, traveled by wagon from Temple, Okla., in 1923 with five of their 10 chil dren - Pete, Red, Lera Mae, Elmer and Lloyd Foster, along with their constant companion Carlo, the dog. They settled by the oak in 1934.
How many other wagons stopped beneath this oak to take a reprieve?
It may have shed a limb and its title, but it still has more trunk rings to put around its girth before it is done. Krenek’s older generation has passed on and made way for younger generations of different families to wile away the hours under the oak. Mostly, though, it now shades tourists as a backdrop for pictures. Oh, what a story it could tell.
