14.63.2-3

This photograph, taken in about 1960 by Ames resident Rodney Fox, shows the locally famous "H" tree during the winter (note the snow on the ground). The "H" tree, located near Gilbert, was actually a graft of a red (or, slippery) elm and a white (or, American) elm. The trees first grew in the late eighteenth century and may have been joined together on purpose by Native Americans who inhabited the area around the Skunk River or they may have grown in this manner by natural accident. By the 1960s, the pair of elms no longer had the vigor of youth that they would need to fend off the Dutch Elm Disease which was beginning to infect the elm trees of the middle west. The bare-branched "H" tree continued to stand for two more decades. In 1986, ravages of storms and high water finally claimed the "local wonder." A chain saw cut near the top of the tree revealed more than 200 rings. (See also: 78.406.4-5 and 78.408.1)