Overwhelmed by the Big Tree at Goose Island State Park

What was happening on the Gulf Coast in the year 1015? Did this tree start as a sapling near a Karankawa fishing camp?

When I saw The Big Tree of Goose Island State Park my brain couldn't comprehend that I was looking something 1,000 years old.

I know there are older trees in the world. But this one caught my attention.

Your imagination cranks up when you think about what has happened during the past thousand years around this tree with the big, crazy trunk and crooked branches.

It was an overcast blustery 50 degrees but the grass was still green in early December at Goose Island State Park. Birders were looking for Sandhill Cranes, which I heard but never saw that day.

I enjoyed looking at the tree.

There are lots of bumps and scars on the tree, which survived hundreds of years of floods, fires, droughts, careless humans and up to 50 hurricanes.

The height of 44 feet has been stunted by the Gulf breezes, but the tree's impressive girth is 35 feet around. It is 89 feet across the crown.

The tree has also been called the Lamar Oak, named for the town that was mostly destroyed by a Union naval bombardment in 1865 that started fires. It is also known as Texas State Champion Live Oak and Bishop's Tree, for the Catholic retreat near  Lamar.

The state of Texas acquired private lands from 1931 through 1935 to create Goose Island State Park and now cares for the tree, which outlasted so many others without any help.

The Big Tree's younger relatives look slim compared to the old-timer.