Kewannee Osage Orange

Potter Farm Osage-orange, Maclura pomifera Nuttall

This great tree is the only remaining part of one of the original hedgerows promoted by Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner in the 1840s, and is perhaps the last documented tree remaining from that era. The hedgerow was planted by the Potter family, who farmed here before the City of Kewanee was founded on the site. Turner was a professor at Illinois College and is considered the founder of the American land grant university system as well as the impetus behind the establishment of hedgerow plantings throughout the Midwest and Great Plains. Many additional trees were planted later for windbreaks, and these trees became the shelter belt system that saved America's soils from the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The tree has been leaning for decades, and the City has noticed some sidewalk movement this year indicating that the lean is increasing. The tree's root system has been compromised structurally over the years by the sidewalk to the west and the highway to the east.

After the city decided to remove the tree for the safety of its citizens, several tree experts and tree lovers asked the city to reconsider. To their great credit, they did. The tree has been saved by judicious pruning and other actions.