(bottom) Henry and Clara Ford. Courtesy Henry Ford Estate, Fair Lane.

history

This Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa michaux) is located in the lower level of the Fair Lane property near the Rouge River in Dearborn, Michigan. The area in which the tree stands occupies one of the many prairie openings in the Michigan forests, where Native Americans camped. The landscape was managed by way of prairie fires that helped keep the areas open. By the mid-1800s, the land was cleared for growing settlements and increased farming activity ended the fires. As a result, trees without the bur oak's thick protective bark grew into the openings.

When landscape architect Jens Jensen began planning the Henry Ford Estate in 1913, the curvilinear lower level drive to the powerhouse was designed to avoid the tree. Then, a large sun-loving vegetable garden was planned in the area of the Bur Oak, which could have required the removal of the large shade tree. Oral history reveals that Mr. Ford himself stopped the felling of the tree and directed that the tree remain as a focal element in the center of the vegetable garden. The vegetable garden was removed after Mrs. Ford’s death in 1950 and only a small percentage of the original trees in Jensen’s survive, while the Bur Oak remains as a living witness to the prairie’s past.