A burr oak so large it takes seven people standing fingertip to fingertip to reach around its trunk, towered over its spot in Northeast Kansas City since before there was a Kansas City, or a state of Missouri, or a United States of America. Frank the Liberty Tree has served as a neighborhood focal point, a link to the past — and now, perhaps, a metaphor for the present.
Recent years have not been kind to Frank the Liberty Tree. After more than 250 years, it has to come down.
Last Saturday, neighbors came by to bid farewell to the tree, still looming over the old two-story houses on Monroe Street just north of Independence Ave.
“My kids and I used to walk by this tree all the time on our way down to Apple market, back and forth,” said Susan Palmer, who lives nearby. “And my kids were little and learning to read and learning history and whatnot, and so it just became sort of a touchstone for us to walk by the tree.”
A small, 50-year-old plaque leaning against the tree for support labels it a Liberty Tree, one dating back to 1776.
Betty Rozzell drove over with a friend from Brookside.
“It’s seen a lot of life. Just stories it could tell. I'm sure it was once a beautiful tree,” said Rozzell. “Now it's kind of scary.”
Huge branches twist crazily or end in stumps. Its enormous trunk is lumpy with old wounds. Lighting blew the top off around the turn of this century and cut a scar all the way down through the roots, where rot and fungus have taken hold. One side of the trunk is so decayed you can pull it apart with your fingers. It’s listing ominously.
“That's another reason why he has to go,” said arborist Ron Gamm, who’s leading the removal crew. “If he (falls), he's gonna create a lot of damage and knock out power for a lot of people.”
Dangerous and ugly as the Liberty Tree has become, Chrystal Beasley fell in love with it at first sight.
“I touched it, and I felt the energy of this tree, and it just spoke to me,” said Beasley, gazing at the tree.
Beasley moved just three months ago from Atlanta, sight unseen, into the top floor of the old brick candy store building right next to the tree. Then, she started making friends.
“I have so many people who just walk by, and they're like, I know that tree. I've seen that tree, I've used to climb this tree! Now I have this network of people,” said Beasley. “It’s very powerful.”
So powerful that Beasley, who works in marketing, sent out a press release about the tree’s impending demise. And she named it Frank, after a former owner of the property, Frank McLaughlin.
“We had 100 people show up at our first event to recognize Frank,” Beasley said. “Since then, we've had people emailing and calling and just reaching out to say, ‘Can I get a piece of the tree?’”
Beasley says people from as far away as Florida and Washington state, literally from sea to shining sea, want a piece of Frank.
A local woodworker will use the wood, which predates the Revolutionary War, to make coasters and cutting boards, and possibly a bench for the spot where the tree stood.
“Frank is older than our country at this point, and you can feel just the deep roots that it has to the community, the way that this tree has lived through so many things that we probably haven't, would never know,” said Beasley. “I want to hear his story. I want to get a tree communicator, if that's a thing, and just listen to what this tree has to offer.”
Susan Palmer, the longtime neighbor, says the tree and its decline have something to say about the present.
"It hit me as a symbol, the tree is rotting, and so I feel, are we, our society is,” said Palmer. “We have rot, and I don't think we have much liberty left either.”
The tree’s trying to make a comeback. With the unseasonably warm weather this winter, new buds are already springing up on the tips of its upper branches.
Gamm said that if the tree had been properly pruned just after the lightning strike, it could have survived.
But now, it’s too late for Frank the Liberty Tree.
“It's been probably 15 years since I've walked by this tree, and I can definitely tell the difference,” said Palmer. “It's not the magnificent tree it used to be, you know, you can tell it's seen hard times.”
