Battle Oaks
Instead of a physical battle with bows, arrows and guns, which gave the not far away Seiders Oaks their notoriety, the Battle Oaks were engaged in a struggle of Man vs. Nature, which, when nature wins, is many times best for man anyway, as it turns out.
Along with seven others listed under a category that the Famous Trees of Texas website entitled "Saved From the Axe." (Don't ask me why the additional *e* on the end???), these trees had advocates who fought for their lives.
Why the quotation marks around “forty acres?”
This group of three live oaks are a small remnant of a larger grove of trees destroyed during the civil war, present on the original 40 acres of the University of Texas when it opened in 1883. They were fixin' (as we say in Texas) to be taken down to build a new biological lab building on the northwest corner of campus.
Students and faculty protested to the man in charge, who preserved them in 1923 by getting the building plan to move down the block. The trees weren't named for the fact that they became embattled, but for the chair of the Faculty Building Committee, Dr. William Battle, to whom folks brought their concerns.
Famous Trees of Texas mentions that he was persuaded specifically by a (jocular?) threat from UT law professor Judge Robert Batts, who promised to “come down to Austin with a shotgun” if need be, which was apparently convincing. This is one of several instances where the FToT uses a tone of pride for the shoot 'em up, tough guy mentality so well associated with the Lone Star State. However, it's rare that one encounters this attitude in connection with saving trees.
Another beautiful grouping of Quercus virginiana, these oak's dark colored bark and long twisting branches form drooping canopies full of ball moss (Tillandsia recurvata). The open space where they reside provides a welcoming entry point to the campus, easily located just a block from Guadalupe Street, which was packed with burnt orange clad pedestrians heading toward the stadium.
The area features a large statue of Barbara Jordan, the first African American elected to the Texas Senate, the first Southern Black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.
Her keynote at the Democratic National Convention in 1976 can be heard on the It Was Said podcast.
Her speech is embossed into large granite slabs. I noted this quote from the extensive text:
“I’ve always felt that as long as you are alive, you should be doing something that makes a difference. You don’t have to do big, gigantic things, just do things incrementally that make a difference. ”
Sweltering in the heat with my long time friend, taking photos and admiring the neighboring plantings, we talked about accepting help in adulthood, which is sometimes painfully necessary in times of transition… About how to let go of thinking we are always supposed to do it all alone and how to pay it forward once we're back on our feet. Being around the wise old trees, making progress on my goal and having a little adventure got my mental juices flowing about what we are supposed to be doing with our lives, how to improve, and how to be ok with what is.
We saw three other groups of trees in Austin that day:
Seiders Oaks
Auction Oaks
Treaty Oak
