History of roadside trees

[Gopher]

Merry Christmas, all!

I am soliciting everyone's help. There was a row of approximately 120 year-old sugar maple that were removed along one of our county roads last year. There is a battle going on currently over whether or not the removal was legal, or continuing right-of-way widening (on certain roads) is warranted or legal.

Anyway, in measuring these stumps (of course they were very sound and healthy!), one can plainly see that they were planted 25 to 26 feet from the roads centerline in roughly the 1880's.

Does anyone know where I could find information regarding why trees were planted adjacent to roads then? I can venture some guesses, like perhaps to mark the roads for horse travel, but it would be great to have something documented.

We have been doing some digging at the local histrical office, but haven't found anything pertaining to the trees near roads.

Thank you.

Gopher

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Posting this to The Knothole may render better results, though Guys relationship with American Forests may help.

What DNR district are you in, John Van Ells has helped me out on an occasion or two, at least pointing me to the person in the know. He is at the Kettle Morain office.

I looked at their website and looks like your in the NE region. Here's the contact info.

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/forestry/uf/staff/northeast.htm

 

[geofore]

hi story

If you go back in history you'll find Ash trees were used as mile markers along the roads in combinnation with other trees planted to the right or left to tell you how far you were from town, tavern or church.
If you live in a small town streets were 40' wide, 20' alleys. In more recent times roads were changed to 60' right-of-way to accomadate parking on the streets and alleys went to 30'-40' to accomadate firetrucks. Check the old maps before they disappear.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Gopher
. There is a battle going on currently over whether continuing right-of-way widening (on certain roads) is warranted or legal.
Condemnation is routine and legal unless the road gets special legal protection, like an historic byway etc.

Does anyone know where I could find information regarding why trees were planted adjacent to roads then?

Most likely environmental reasons, like for windbreaks for ag fields, or purely aesthetics--people back then liked trees too.

My road has a 30' easement, so I plant 31' away. now the local town has maps showing future growth can call for a 4-lane road, widening and condemnation some time in the future. When/if that happens the condemnation cost will include tree value, you can bet on that. Much of my appraisal work in Cary is for that; done right it can net owners enough to replant good stuff back.

Of course they'd rather have the originals, but we make lemonade.

In a few cases of rural road widening here, owners have gotten special recognition and appraisals of economic value for their trees and used that to force DOT to bend the road away from the trees, or widen another road to handle the traffic in the area. Hope you can dig up enough lore on those maples to do just that . IMO the story of just the present benefits, well told, may help a lot.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Dave's case has some rather good aspects.

1. some of the road easements are owned by the citizens to the centerline.
2. past management practices that kept the larger trees intact and healthy
3. lack of budget and accounting for condemnationin the past.
4. past condemnation has been somewhat arbitrary, officials admitted there is no plan
5. no serveys have been done on volume, most roads in the county fall far below the state deffinition for low volume
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   I like the one where the county manager sells firewood....

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by John Paul Sanborn
I like the one where the county manager sells firewood....

Fascinating:blush:. There must be budding investigative envirojournalists at UW who would be just Mad about sinking their teeth into that kind of story--like Arlo Guthrie said, "Blood and gore and guts; veins in my teeth!"

 

[Gopher]

Road and Trees

JPS is right, the roads in our county fall well below the 400 cars per day, so we are very low volume, and thsus no widening is necessary.

Guy, Many of the 120 year old maples were dumped last winter, but we are trying to save many more on other roads. I thank you for comments.

The roads have been maintained as three rod roads for 150 years (49.5 feet wide, and the trees were planted accordingly, at 26 feet to the side, just like you mention, Guy. Now all of a sudden, we have some dork in there who wants to exercise his heavy hand, and they feel any tree near the road is a hazard. Little do they realize that they are actually making the roads more open to increased speeds, and we all know speed is what kills.

If only those pesky trees would quit jumping in front of my headlights... oh that's right, those are deer!!!

Gopher