Old Oak Update



If you have extraordinarily good vision and/or a large computer monitor, you can see that the base of the tree measured just a touch over 4.5'.

Based on our best effort to count very tightly-packed growth rings, the old oak was 140 years old.  In other words, the tree began growing in 1871, and Mr. Rath shared the following about the tree's birth year:

"1871 was the year of the great Peshtigo fire, the worst recorded forest fire in North American history. The the Civil War had ended 6 years earlier. There were 37 states and the population of Madison was just over 9,000. More importantly, it would be another 17 years before the first permanent golf club in the USA would be formed in Yonkers, New York. That is a long time ago."