Qualla: Webster Sycamore

Webster Sycamore: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x, Public domain. It had stood since around the year 1500 - before Columbus's third voyage, before the Reformation, before any European had reached this part of North America. The American sycamore on the bank of the Back Fork of the Elk River grew to 112 feet tall and 25 feet around. It was the largest tree of its species in West Virginia and, for three weeks in 1955, the largest American sycamore in the United States. It survived the Cherry River lumber boom that took every other big tree off these hills. It survived 500 years of floods, ice storms, and lightning. It did not survive a 17-year-old boy from Bergoo with a lighter.

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Image: Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x | Public domain

Webster Sycamore: The Tree

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kmusser, CC BY-SA 2.5. Platanus occidentalis, the American sycamore, grows in moist bottomland soils along streams across the eastern United States. The mottled bark - olive, gray, and bone-white in irregular patches - is unmistakable. Mature sycamores can reach 100 feet or more and live for centuries,...

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Image: Kmusser | CC BY-SA 2.5

Webster Sycamore: How It Survived

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x, Public domain. The tree stood on land owned by the Pardee and Curtin Lumber Company, headquartered in nearby Webster Springs. In the 1950s, when Pardee and Curtin logged the surrounding ridges, they made a decision that lumber companies rarely make: they spared this tree. The land around it bec...

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Image: Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x | Public domain

Webster Sycamore: The National Title, Briefly

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x, Public domain. In 1955 the American Forests Association declared the Webster Sycamore the largest American sycamore in the United States. The title lasted exactly three weeks. The association then identified a slightly larger sycamore in Maryland and revised the listing. The Webster Sycamore re...

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Image: Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x | Public domain

Webster Sycamore: The Fire

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x, Public domain. On the afternoon of September 3, 2007, someone set a fire in the base of the trunk. The fire burned up through the hollow center of the tree - sycamores commonly hollow out at the base as they age, leaving a chimney-like void inside an otherwise living trunk - and ate the interio...

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Image: Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x | Public domain

Webster Sycamore: The Fall

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x, Public domain. In the summer of 2010, the Division of Forestry brought the Webster Sycamore down. The trunk that had stood since the late 1400s was reduced to a pile of cordwood and a stump in a single working day. It was approximately 500 years old. The arson took its life in the way an arsoni...

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Image: Mosely, Edwin Lincoln (1920) Trees, Stars and Birds: A Book of Outdoor Science, Yonkers, New York: World Book Company, p. x | Public domain