‘It was a beautiful tree’

The Parker-Rogers Tree stood proudly — and massively — for years.

The giant white oak towered over a quaint hillside overlooking gently rolling land in south Whitfield County near the Valley Point schools. But it was there long before the schools, before the Civil War, perhaps even before the birth of the United States.

The tree, which a tree expert said is “easily 250 years old and possibly up to 300,” weathered an untold number of violent storms, intense lightning strikes, extreme droughts and the perils of urbanization. It was one of Whitfield County’s oldest trees.

This past Thursday night, the tree met its demise. Swirling winds toppled the tree, casting a sense of sorrow among the scores of people who as children played under its branches and later as adults admired its beauty.

“It’s sad,” said Dalton resident Brelinda Rogers Bolles, whose great-grandfather said the tree was already large when he lived on the family homeplace near the white oak in the 1800s. “The people that do know about it say, ‘That’s the oldest thing I’ve ever known. I can’t believe it’s gone.’”

The family sold the property off Old Fields Road to Doug and Sharlene Frazier six years ago. One of the main reasons they bought the land was the white oak. When storms rolled through the county Thursday night, Sharlene said she heard a “very loud” noise. She feared the tree had been knocked over.

It had been.

The tree stood about 20 feet from the house. To her amazement, the home wasn’t damaged at all.

“We’re just so thankful to God that when it fell it went the other way and not towards the house,” she said. “There were limbs hanging over our house. It was like there was a wall there.”

Monday afternoon, much of the tree remained resting in the Fraziers’ front yard. The splintered trunk, which measures 82 inches in diameter, split open to show the affects of age. Family members spent two days clearing the tree but had barely made a dent. When asked how far the limbs extended, Sharlene pointed to a spot on the driveway about 25 feet from the trunk.

“There used to be a swing hanging there,” she said.

An article in the Oct. 15, 1968, edition of The Daily Citizen-News documented a visit by the Georgia Forestry Service. The visit was two-fold. One reason was to determine if the tree was a “champion” of the state. Also, then-property owner Parker Rogers sought advice on how to treat the tree’s injuries caused by a lightning strike.

Georgia Forestry Service representatives measured the tree at “17 feet, eight inches in girth 4.5 feet from the ground,” and said it was “86 feet tall and has a spread of 115 feet in one direction and 109 feet in the another,” according to the article.

The Rogers family bought the land from D.L. Thomason in 1947. They tore down the existing home and built a new one a short distance from the shade tree. However, the Rogers’ daughters objected because they wanted to be closer to “their tree.” The family built another house just steps from the tree.

“It is more than just another tree to the family,” according to the story. “It is a sentimental symbol of home and family tradition.”

The Georgia Forestry Service performed an increment boring on the tree about 15 years ago, said Kris Thomas, the city of Dalton arborist. The test found the tree was more than 200 years old. Thomas estimated the tree was “roughly 200 to 300 years old” and was “probably the largest white oak in Whitfield County.”

“White oaks live a long time,” Thomas said. “They’re kind of our version of the live oak. It takes about a hundred years for them to begin life, then a hundred years to live, then a hundred years to die. They’re a long-living tree.”

Thomas speculated a lighting strike may have damaged the tree and caused decay. The tree had been hit by lightning several times. Speaking from the perspective of an arborist, Thomas said losing another large tree “hits me deeply.”

“And we’re losing a lot of these giants,” Thomas said. “It’s sad to see. They’re reaching their apex of life and they’re falling down. Our storms are getting more severe, there is no doubt, and our wind loads on these trees are getting more severe all the time.”

Thomas also had a personal history with the tree.

“It was a beautiful tree,” Thomas said. “I’ve known of that tree for a good 30 years. I used to bird hunt down there a long time ago. We’d go down there and quail hunt and I’d always marvel at how much span those limbs shaded a huge area. When we’d get through bird hunting, we’d take a break and sit under the tree.”

The Fraziers have offered tree limbs to family members and invited them to see the remains of the tree before they are hauled off.

“That’s the oldest thing I’ve touched around here,” Bolles said. “There are old things in Europe, but not in Georgia.”

There are still old trees nearby. If you never saw the soaring Parker-Rogers Tree in person, you don’t have to travel far to see another giant.

There’s a 200-plus-year-old white oak in Whitfield County in West Hill Cemetery near the chapel.

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‘It was a beautiful tree’

200-plus-year-old tree in Whitfield County felled by storms

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