Tales From the Magic Skagit: A Tulip Poplar Grows in Mount Vernon (Pt. 2)

In Part 1 of our story about one of the most magnificent trees of the Skagit Valley, Mount Vernon’s epic tulip poplar, we talked about the tree species it so nobly represents: Liriodendron tulipifera. In this installment, we’ll dive into the particular Liriodendron tulipifera that spreads its leafy arms over the intersection of Cleveland and Snoqualmie streets. And although some questions as to its origin will remain, we’ll delve a little deeper into the mists of time in telling its story — and we’ll invite you to help us fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.

To tell this story, I’ve had the good fortune of picking the brains of a number of people who know and love trees. I’d like to introduce them to you now, since I’ll be referencing them throughout this story.

Jim Barborinas

For several decades, Jim has managed a consulting business called Urban Forestry Services, which was purchased last year by Bartlett Consulting. Along with three other consultants, Jim continues to provide tree assessments, evaluations, appraisals, and landscape installation reviews and monitoring throughout the Puget Sound area. In addition, he and his wife Annie own a 30-acre tree nursery on McLean Road, just a few miles west of Mount Vernon, on which they raise nearly 30,000 trees. 

Larry Otos

For 30 years (1985 – 2015), Larry served the City of Mount Vernon as its Director of Parks & Recreation — which put our tulip poplar within his official oversight. He also worked closely with Jim Barborinas to preserve it, along with some other iconic trees in the city (the subject of future Tales from the Magic Skagit), Larry can also tell you some stories about Meyer Sign’s very own Gregg Collins and his brothers, but our attorneys are still looking into statute of limitation issues before we share them.

Jennifer Berner

Jennifer is Mount Vernon’s current Director of Parks & Enrichment, and while she has been in that capacity for less than a year, she already has some very innovative plans regarding educating our community on our leafy neighbors. She has also been kind enough to help me sleuth city records for information about the subject of our story.

Neil Hall

A one time Army photojournalist stationed in post-war Germany, Neil had the good fortune to marry Susan Wells, the current owner of Wells Nursery along with Neil and Wendy Ragusa, their daughter. In his many years with Mount Vernon’s well known and much loved nursery business, just off Blodgett Road, Neil has probably forgotten more about trees than I’ll ever know. He is also personally responsible for the identification of scores of unique trees that found root in Skagit Valley soil in the wake of the westward migration, some of which he has since propagated through his nursery business. If you want to know just how much Neil loves trees, he once chained himself to one to keep it from being torn down. That’s another story altogether.

The Mists of Time

While our research has not yet pinned down the particulars of when and by whom Mount Vernon’s epic tulip poplar was planted, Jim Barborinas can definitely say that it’s the largest of its kind in the State of Washington, based on what he describes as a “list of championship trees that was published nearly 30 years ago.”

Jim does have a theory, however, as to its origin — which also happens to be the one that I subscribe to based on the fact that the tulip poplar (as we learned in Part 1 of this series) is native to the eastern part of the continental United States. It is most likely that  someone also native to that end of the continent would have either brought a seedling with them, or purchased one from traveling merchants during a time when driving the SUV to Home Depot wasn’t a landscaping option.

Besides whatever sentimental attachment a Skagit Valley pioneer may have felt for tulip poplars, they had the added benefit of being a fast growing and spectacular shade tree. It’s that “fast growing” attribute that makes determining the tree’s age problematic, unless we can find a definitive record of its planting.

Spoiler Alert! — I’m going to stop right here and now and tell you the Big Takeaway I want you to leave this story with…and you can continue surfing the web without reading any further beyond the following statement. The tulip poplar on the corner of Cleveland and Snoqualmie may very well be our oldest living connection with the Skagit Valley’s pioneer past.

The first settlers along the banks of the Skagit River at today’s location of Mount Vernon came here in 1870. Seven years later, the town named after George Washington’s home on the Potomac River had its own post office. It most likely would not have been until some years after that the town would have become “genteel” enough for its residents to be concerned with ornamental shade trees of any origin. This particular timeframe of 140 years would most likely mark the upper end of the tree’s age. Considering that the house it grows next to was built in 1901, the tree is more likely be lower on the possible age scale by twenty years or so. A Skagit Valley pioneer, without a doubt.

Believe it or not, this is what Mount Vernon looked like 140 years ago — less than the span of a few lifetimes!

If it seems incomprehensible that a tree could grow so large in less than 200 years, consider that a tulip poplar planted by George Washington, and christened “The Independence Tree” in 1976, is a less formidable specimen compared to the one our very own Mount Vernon boasts. “We have a lot of eastern species that do even better here because of the climate,” says Jim Barborinas. “It’s part of our pioneer era for sure, and if there are earlier pictures of the house it is next to we might tell if it was planted by the people who built it.”

Close Calls

You would think that being the largest tree of its type in the entire state of Washington would automatically guarantee the status of Mount Vernon’s tulip poplar as an untouchable icon. You’d be wrong. As Larry Otos wryly observes, “The tulip tree has been both a nemesis and a blessing.” The simple fact is that the same attribute that makes our tulip poplar an arboreal icon — its size — also makes it a liability. As with any tree, its root system can have a costly impact on municipal infrastructure such as sidewalks and utility lines. And if the tree is also deciduous, the shedding of autumn leaves creates a mess. Although the latter liability often falls on property owners, it can also generate complaints to the city. 

The tulip poplar tree of Cleveland and Snoqualmie has been guilty of both crimes against municipal propriety, and it’s no exaggeration to say that were it not for Larry Otos, it would have paid the price through its removal. I’ll let Larry take the story from here.

“There have been many people who wanted to cut it down because it created a mess, but the property owner originally leased the facility to the city, where the planning department located while City Hall was being worked on. As a result of the lease, the tree fell under the purview of the city of Mount Vernon. When the city was redoing the sidewalks, the public works director at that time wanted to remove the tree to accommodate the sidewalk’s placement. I told him that removing the tree would be political suicide — we’d have people chained up to it. There is so much love for the tree, and you don’t want to be there when that happens. Engineers want to do everything straight, and a meandering sidewalk is not in their mindset.”

Larry reached out to Jim Barborinas, and Jim clearly remembers their conversation. “The City called me around 10 years ago when they were doing some street work, and they were asking what they could do about the tree, since it was busting up the sidewalk. I gave them the idea of abandoning the sidewalk, which was on the south side of the tree, and creating a ‘wrap around’ to go into the right of way a bit — which gave the tree a lot more room to grow.”

The tree survived yet another close brush with the axe when a former owner of the house it grows next to complained about the mess it was making — through no fault of the tree itself, as Larry Otos points out. “Every year the tree had an aphid infestation. They won’t kill the tree, but the droppings make everything around it really slick. It’s just a mess, and you can’t park underneath it. We kept getting complaints. The owner wanted to cut it down because of the number of complaints she received. I contacted Jim. He said don’t cut it down, but hire a tree company to inject the root system with an application that will go up into the tree and get rid of them systemically. I was skeptical, but it solved the problem.”

The Official Tree of Mount Vernon

At a Mount Vernon City Council Meeting on April 10, 2002, then Mayor Richendrfer “read and signed a Proclamation declaring April 10, 2002 Arbor Day. He asked all citizens to support efforts to care for our trees and woodlands and to support our community’s forestry program.” As part of this proclamation, which I have obtained a copy of thanks to the efforts of city accounting tech Rashel O’Neil, the mayor’s report went on to state, “The City has named the Tulip Tree as the Official City Tree because of its name, the tulip shape of its leaf, its stately qualities, and its historical significance as being one of the oldest planted trees in Mount Vernon and largest in the state.”

The mayor’s proclamation further “urged all citizens to plant tulip trees, as well as other trees, to gladden the heart and promote the well being of this and future generations.” It bears noting that the proclamation was then presented to Vera and Ralph Rothrock, Jim Barborinas, and Pat Howard. Four years later, the City Council (during the mayorship of Bud Norris) observed yet another Arbor Day by further honoring the tulip poplar, and another of the species was planted “next to the reader board at First and Kincaid Street,” as well as at Hillcrest Park.

To “Gladden the Heart”

Standing in awe of the “official city tree” that continues to grow on the corner of Cleveland and Snoqualmie, it seems hard to imagine that anyone would have seriously suggested removing it. And thanks to folks like Larry Otos and Jim Barborinas, all of us will be able to show our grandchildren and great grandchildren something more than an Instagram photo of a living part of Mount Vernon’s pioneer past. As Larry Otos observes, “The tulip tree has a special place in my heart. Being the protector of trees in the city, it was one we always looked out for. Joe Q public may not think much about it, but arborists and those who have protected it over the years love it.”

Jim Barborinas seconds that emotion. “A lot of people appreciate trees, but they don’t make the extra effort to make them special to a broader audience. We had a tree board many years ago, and I know there are many people in the community who care about our local trees.”

But to truly honor, and protect, Mount Vernon’s most epic tulip poplar, we need to take yet another step. Perhaps not as extreme as chaining ourselves to it in the event that the exigencies of municipal life once more cast it in the role of public nuisance. We need to give it a name. 

Which is where Jennifer Berner comes into our story of Mount Vernon’s tulip poplar tree.  

In my phone conversations with the new director of Mount Vernon Parks & Enrichment, I discovered that her department is working on some online activities for kids this summer to further their interest in our natural world, including trees. We talked about what a great idea it would be to have a contest in which kids could propose names for the largest tulip poplar in the State of Washington. Meyer Sign & Advertising could help promote the contest, because promoting stuff is kind of a thing with us. Just sayin’. 

I brought this idea up with Larry Otos. “Does this tree have a name?,” he wondered. “I’ve never heard it if it does. To save and preserve things you name them. It’s no longer just an object. I love this tree, and it provides so much shade and protection, and the optics of all the branches is just a historical perspective of the storms that have come, the limbs that have broken. Every branch tells a story.”

Where Do We Go From Here?

But I still don’t know the complete story of the State of Washington’s largest tulip poplar and pioneer denizen of Mount Vernon. I don’t know its vital dimensions (circumference, height, spread), although Jennifer Berner has been kind enough to dispatch a member of her staff to do some field research. I imagine a good tape measure and perhaps a camera equipped drone would do the job, and I expect I’ll be able to share that info with you in the near future.

What is more of a mystery is exactly who planted the tree and when they planted it. While this might seem a more challenging line of inquiry, I do have a lead, thanks to Neil Hall of Wells Nursery. According to Neil, the local attorney who owned the building adjacent to the tulip poplar (Earl Angevine) might have some records that would reveal this information. Earl has sadly passed on, but his wife, Joann Angevine, may have contact information for a former office worker with access to those records. Joann, if you’re reading this, expect a call.

Which leads me to conclude this series with a request for you gentle readers. If you have any information/stories/anecdotes to share about our great and yet-to-be-named tulip poplar tree, please share it with us via our Facebook page (which is always a cool place to hang out, regardless). We have Ristretto gift certificates, and we can make it worth your while. In the meantime, get outside after a long day of social distancing and get a little closer to nature. Indulge your inner hippie and go hug a tree, even if someone is looking. And if you have a tree you’d like to give a big Magic Skagit shout out to, please do so on our dime. We’d love to tell its story. In a time of great uncertainty and trauma, it’s nice to be reminded that life persists, and Nature abides.

What would you name this tree?