Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
A massive, five-trunk willow tree, which grew just south of the main tennis courts at Pioneer Park, was cut down on Arbor Day.
One of the most popular trees in Billings — yes, a popular tree — is no more.
The huge, five-trunk willow tree that sat just south of the main tennis courts at Pioneer Park was cut down on Arbor Day.
Fred Bicha, the city forester, said the willow had become too rotten and dangerous, so he made the decision to take it down.
A private tree company felled the willow on Arbor Day, April 25, when many local tree services were donating their work to the city. In all, the tree companies performed $35,000 worth of free services in city parks on Arbor Day, Bicha said.
The willow in question was popular mainly because there was a substantial natural platform three or four feet off the ground where the trunks forked off. Untold thousands of children — and more than a few adults — played in and around that tree over the years, and probably many thousands more had their pictures taken while sitting or standing on that natural platform.
Bicha said the tree, with a diameter of 104 inches, or 8½ feet, had been trimmed numerous times in recent years to remove dead limbs. Using a Resistograph, which bores into a tree about 15 inches and measures the density of the wood, Bicha determined that the willow’s time had come.
“We just felt it was time for that tree to be removed,” he said. “After taking it down and looking at that stump, I feel we made the right decision.”
“It kind of weighed on me a lot,” he said. He also considered removing only the least stable of the trunks.
“I could have left maybe two of them, but it would have looked horrible,” he said.
Bicha said he didn’t know how old the willow was, but it was probably less than 100. Last October, during a Parade of Trees bike ride, photographs of Pioneer Park in 1912 were being circulated, and the willow was not yet there, he said.
The good news is that 21 new trees were planted in Pioneer Park on Arbor Day.
