Ranger Oaks

Not gonna lie. When I saw these two scraggly oaks, I was disappointed.

Finding historic oaks that look forgotten, declining, and degraded by municipal structure is downright depressing.

Other notable oak siblings, with their roots squelched into oblong cement shapes, stood in the vicinity on the first cool weekend of October.

Before it was a parking lot…

this area of downtown Seguin was a whole grove of trees under which the Gonzales Rangers — precursor of the Texas Rangers — took shelter circa 1828.

The historical marker describes a disturbing firing line massacre…

of Indians and other “renegades” shot so their bodies fell into the trench they were forced to dig themselves beforehand, which “saved some of the trouble of the burial.”

Great imagery. Thanks

Glad we got that engraved on a sign for posterity.

I’ll go ahead and admit that it didn’t even occur to me

while we were standing there, that the cement and asphalt I was fussing about covers the mass grave that the marker details. Recounted in devastating detail from a different perspective, this article names Ranger James Callahan from the celebratory plaque, which was appallingly placed there as late as 2010.

Looking into it later led me down a rabbit hole which included this podcast about the dark chapters in the history of the Texas Rangers.

On a more uplifting note, an impressive larger specimen caught our eye, catty corner from where we parked, so my friend, former co-worker, Texas Master Naturalist and fellow horticulturist, Sandi and I criss-crossed right on over to the Emmanuel Lutheran campus to get a look.

Now that’s more like it!

THIS is what keeps me driving around Texas: hoping I find a beautiful, mature giant that inspires awe and connects me to something greater than myself.

photo by Sandi Holmes

Who doesn’t LOVE a big ol’ tree with a satisfying trunk you can’t even get your arms around?

I mean, the city of Seguin paved up to the trunks of these old oaks, so… I don’t know

This photo accidentally captured the angle of the oaks shown in the first edition Famous Trees of Texas book

The Ranger Oaks are located at the southeast corner of Gonzales and Travis Streets, in Seguin.

Relevant links

Refusing to Forget is a multifaceted project that seeks to incite public conversations through efforts such as: museum and online exhibits, historical marker unveilings, lectures, and curricular materials for public school teachers. The story of Rangers executing unnamed men who had escaped slavery in March 1839 is linked from their site

Produced by Texas Monthly, the podcast White Hats tells the story of one of Texas’s defining symbols.

McNay Art Museum, in San Antonio has a drawing of oaks in Seguin from 1848

Many thanks to Brenda Biggerstaff-Sanchez for research assistance 🩷