A living legend: Klein’s Kissing Tree the latest to earn historic designation

Should its limbs — twisting upward and slumping downward — not sufficiently convey aged gravitas, the Kissing Tree in Klein also bears enough patchy growths of ashen Spanish moss to lend the live oak the look of Rip Van Winkle.

One can imagine the tree grumbling like an elder about the youth around it: fairly new housing developments and a Circle K. Not even 10 years ago, the tree was a Klein landmark visible from Strack Farms Restaurant, a cafe that operated for more than three decades, having itself sprung like a limb from a family vegetable market. While street names and civic institutions still bear the names Strack and Klein — families of German immigrants that settled here more than 170 years ago — many institutions have faded away over the years as Houston expands ever outward.

Nevertheless, the community rallied around the Kissing Tree three years ago when it was in danger of being uprooted to make way for a gas station and convenience store. Today it has a little 4-acre space to call its own. And last month, the Kissing Tree was designated by the Texas A&M Forest Service as one of its Famous Trees of Texas.

“I was so surprised that people noticed it,” says Laura Medick, an arborist who works for Harris County’s Precinct 4. “You don’t usually have so many people paying attention to trees in the community. But clearly, people had a strong connection to this site and this tree.”

Though our era of social distancing is bad for mingling, it remains suitable for small-group ventures outdoors, where a decrease in urban traffic has enhanced the subtle, pre-existing value to be found in trees and birds and other natural entities we too often take for granted.

“It is truly a time to stop and smell the roses or, as a forester I should say, to stop and look up and see the trees,” says Gretchen Riley, a partnership coordinator at the Texas A&M Forest Service. “Look up and see the trees instead of just the forest.”

Klein’s Kissing Tree is such a destination, sitting on a small patch of land that was secured because the local community rallied around a tree that served as a courtship site for more than a century.

When the restaurant closed in 2014, a developer purchased the land to build a Circle K convenience store and gas station. The new owners planned to remove the tree because it stood in the way of the gas-station entrance. The proposal sparked a letter-writing campaign by Klein Oaks High School students and eventually a pledge by Circle K to save the tree.

Along with concerned locals, precinct Commissioner R. Jack Cagle worked four years ago with the new owners of the plot to alter the points of entry for the convenience store and protect the tree. Their work yielded Kissing Tree Park, a small piece of land but one that allowed this tree to stay put. The Kissing Tree sees less foot traffic but serves a similar cultural role as the Century Tree at Texas A&M University, which provided a superstition blessing marriage proposals that occurred beneath its branches.

The Texas A&M Forest Service has designated about 100 Famous Trees of Texas. Even then, nearly a third of them bear little RIP tombstones on the organization’s site, as they’ve succumbed to natural and unnatural ends.

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That leaves dozens of remarkable trees still standing, the majority of them on public grounds. Even some of those on private land can be viewed: The Columbus Live Oak is a fine example. This gorgeous tangle of robust branches sits on private property on Walnut Street in Columbus. But the property owners set aside a three-car parking space nearby so viewers can stop and take a look.

“The homeowners did people a great service by making it available,” Medick says.

More often, these Famous Trees of Texas can be found on public land accessible to anyone willing to drive a little bit. The Goose Island Oak — also known as The Big Tree — in Lamar near Rockport remains a year-round draw. The tree is believed to date to at least the 1500s. Positioned near Aransas Bay and St. Charles Bay — its view of the Gulf of Mexico blocked by San José Island — it has endured hurricanes and lightning strikes and droughts. And the tree has stood while its company has changed: from the Karankawas and explorers to fishermen and birders who have found their way to the region over a half century.

McKinney Falls State Park is home to Old Baldy, a towering bald cypress.

These trees have lovely and dubious stories: There are kissing trees and hanging trees. Their limbs have been applied to sweet and horrific ends. Some of the trees have historical connections to people such as Sam Houston and Teddy Roosevelt. Others are merely venerable because of their age. Most of them have stories that don’t likely get told, little tales of individual interaction with people that bear some sentimental value.

“People would take the Spanish moss and make nests for Easter baskets,” Medick says. “And they’d use it to stuff homemade dolls and other crafts.”

The Texas A&M Forest Service started 105 years ago, but the organization began a more formal accounting of Texas trees in the 1960s, which yielded a book, “Famous Trees of Texas,” in 1970. Eighty-seven trees met the criteria at that point. The group did another accounting of Famous Trees for its centennial five years ago.

“We revamped the book,” Riley says. “But we didn’t stop there.” Today Texas A&M Forest Service receives numerous nominations and deems about two trees each year.

“The criteria to become a famous tree is that the trees had to have witnessed exciting events or eras in Texas history,” Riley says. “And they still have to be alive. We don’t posthumously induct a tree.”

But, she adds, “Once famous, always famous with these trees, even if they die.”

The designation bears no great windfall, just bragging rights. But Riley says communities treat some of these trees as locals made good.

“Any protection that comes for these trees is usually from the community, not from any designation,” she says.

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Documentation can be difficult to come by. But Riley says the group was presented with an 1870s photograph of San Antonio’s Ben Milam Cypress, a bald cypress.

“It’s clearly the same tree,” she says.

According to lore, the tree provided cover for a Mexican sniper to take out Benjamin Milam, a colonel who escaped imprisonment in Mexico and joined Gen. Edward Burleson in an effort to claim San Antonio.

“Our steering committee includes people from Texas Parks & Wildlife, the state Historical Commission, too,” Riley says. “There are foresters and historians. And these stories have to pass the sniff test.

“But what I love about this process is that it shows how passionate people are for their beloved trees.”

Medick’s work has been to take the state’s historic trees and sink their progeny into the state’s dirt to raise new trees connected to old trees. For five years, she’s worked with the Legacy Tree Project in Precinct 4 in Harris County, home to Klein’s Kissing Tree. She describes her work as “working with historical Texas progenies.”

The program includes over 1,000 live seedlings from historic Texas trees available for fostering. The Legacy Tree Project offers tutorials in how to nurture the trees from home or other spaces such as schools, local nonprofits and residential spaces within the district. She routinely visits area schools to help an offspring of an old Texas tree sink its roots into Texas soil, offering students a biology lesson with their new tree.

The hope is to build reverence for species of trees unique to this region. And if planting a tree doesn’t necessarily halt the march of progress, it certainly offers some window into the past as young trees move upward imperceptibly to the point when, years later, they prompt awe at their progress.

These trees are easier to miss in a car with a specific destination in mind. But these days, when fewer of us are moving toward a place for an appointment, they hold more sway.

“Research shows us just viewing trees makes us feel better,” Riley says. “So now is a great time to look into their stories. To look outside and think about them and what they’ve seen.”