By Mikala Woodward, Rainier Valley Historical Society
Yes, it’s true — one of Columbia Park’s big leaf maples went down in Tuesday night’s storm. By 8am Wednesday morning, Parks crews had arrived to assess the damage. By 8:45 they had cordoned off the area and were feeding branches off the fallen trunk into a wood chipper.
An arborist determined that the storm wasn’t to blame. It turns out the tree was fatally flawed: two stems had long ago grown together into a single tree, but with a layer of included bark between them that made the bond weak. With all the decay revealed around the split, nobody seemed terribly hopeful about saving the remaining half of the tree.
We’re not really sure when the three big leaf maples were planted outside the Columbia Library — there aren’t many pictures of the park in the early days, possibly because it was an unsightly garbage dump until 1939. The trees were already big by the 1940s and ‘50s, but big leaf maples grow pretty fast.
A 1915 photo shows a wooded slope north of the half-finished library building – are those the big leaf maples in their youth?
Could be. It’s also possible they were planted later that year when the slope was graded as part of the realignment of Rainier Avenue.
Rainier’s realignment created a triangle of disputed land at the northeast corner of the park, and in the 1960s a proposal was floated to build an office building at the corner of Rainier and Alaska. The plan called for the removal of several old trees at the site, and Don Sherwood, Parks Department historian, protested: “We don’t have thirty years to grow new trees!” I’m glad the plan was scrapped – I love the sweep of the park coming up from Rainier. But I think it’s important to note that new trees do grow, and they’ve got nothing but time to do it in. Our fatally flawed friend narrowly missed the Centennial Tree we dedicated in Columbia Park in 2007; it won’t be long – in tree time — before that little big leaf catches up with its elders.
Final thought: that realignment of Rainier back in 1915 cost Columbia City a beloved street tree, which stood in front of Phalen’s grocery (now the Columbia City Bakery). The tree doesn’t look all that big in the old photos, but it had a circular bench around the trunk, and people used to sit there eating ice cream while they waited for the streetcar. When Rainier was widened to add a brick-paved road, the tree was in the way and had to be cut down. A sentimental soul took the wood and made souvenir goblets for everyone in town. We’re hoping to persuade the Parks Department to help us preserve the trunk of the big leaf maple for a commemorative project of some kind – I vote for wooden goblets all around. Then we can stand under the remaining big leaf maples and drink to their health. Bottoms up!
Top Three Photos/Mikala Woodward. Bottom Two Photos/Rainier Valley Historical Society
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From Yalonda Gill Masundire, Rainier Beach Community Block Watch
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