Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1899 — CHICAGO'S GREAT TREE. [ARTICLE]

CHICAGO'S GREAT TREE.

Largest In the Country Outside of the California Monsters. Cook County has a tree almost within the limits of Chicago that is trying in a modest way to keep pace with the city in growth. It rears its majestic height in a field on the farm of Charles Kotz, two miles and a half west of Grosse Point. It is the biggest known tree in the United States, the greatest sequoias of California alone being excepted. Three feet from the ground its girth is 41 feet. The diameter Is 13 feet 6 inches. The height is 130 feet. ¥et this marvel, which hundreds of years ago may have been worshiped by a savage race, has gone on year by year producing its foliage and in the order of nature casting it off, all unnoticed by Chicago. About its only admirer has been the owner. Charles Kotz. He guards it as jealously as he does his own children. Aside from the great height and girth of the trunk is a remarkable hollow or room at its foot This hollow is 26 feet in circumference, 8% feet in diameter and 20 feet in height. A natural doorway 9 feet high and 4 feet wide at the broadest part. A horse and its rider can easily pass through to the interior. Three horses can easily be sheltered inside the mammoth trunk. The hollow is big enough to permit a dining table to be spread in its bounds, and there is room enough to spare for chairs about the table. The height to the first limb is 70 feet, A man of average size must take 24 paces to complete the circuit of the big ttunk. A competent authority on forestry has estimated that the tree, which, by the way, is of the cottonwood family, is no less than GOO years old. In the days of King John aDd Magna Charta this tree was flourishing. When Columbus discovered America it was as large as its companions in the It Is known that even half a century ago it was as big and majestic as it is to-day.—Chicago Inter Ocean.