Sycamore Stump
A few readers might remember my blog a few weeks ago about Ben the bull, who is not really a bull at all, but a steer. I mean now he is stuffed in lives in the park of my home town. I mean he was a bull, then a steer, and then stuffed and now lives in the park. If you would like to read about ben the bull (he is not really a bull at all) you may do so at:
http://www.tudiabetes.org/profiles/blogs/old-ben-the-bull
This musing is about the other major tourist attraction, the sycamore stump. Yes you read it right a stump. Now to begin with the stump did not originate in my home town. Like Ben, the stump came for a town about 15 miles away. A different town, still about 15 miles away but, like ben the bull (who is not really a bull) we acquired the stump from somewhere else.
So what is so great about a stump? Well to me it reflects the community almost perfectly. To start with the stump is said to be the world’s largest sycamore tree stump. There was for a time one mentioned that might be larger in Iowa or maybe Kansas, but if that is true, no one has confirmed it and like earlier claims we are holding on to the title.
Having the world’s biggest sycamore stump brings with it some incredible opportunities. It seems the stump was found while laying a road and likely dragged by wagon into town. When the city people found it, they thought it so incredible someone said let’s put this dude in the main park. That is where it sat until 1934, when someone else suggested that the town should use Works Progress Administration funds to build a tree house. It was and is a fine tree house. It surrounds the stump and has stone reportedly mined from the local creek. A creek which today has no stone like that used for the tree house, so that claim may be suspect. None the less a tree house was built and the wonderful attraction christened. Commencing in 1935, the community recorded something along the lines of less than 2 visitors per year. It was clearly a tourist hit.
This served the community very well for a number of years into the 1950’s. When it turns out those pesky 1950’s kids who were stealing parts of Ben also started to vandalize the stump. It seems that a local tradition developed, which may or may not be true, that young ladies who bestowed a significant gift to a young man would have their initials placed on the inside of the stump. This was made easy since the inside of the stump is hollow and over the years a large entrance hole was cut so the locals could go inside.
As one who has visited the inside of the stump I can attest it is easy to. I can also attest to the number of initials carved there. It is quit the collection. Fearing that the community was running out of room for new initials and sensing the potential impact of the 1960’s the city decided to close the tree house with fence and do the only thing which seemed appropriate. That is true, we filled it full of fair weather monkey’s. There are no recorded incidences of monkey’s marking the now famous monkey habitat on a map as a great place to visit let alone live. Given the cold weather the monkeys were quickly no longer available to inhabit the stump.
Giving up on Monkeys the community turned next to the one thing every tourist attraction needs, a telephone. Starting in approximately 1963 the tree house became a telephone booth. (A rather nice one really) A person could have almost complete privacy while making calls and of course, all telephone booths need a light so one was installed. Since the power was there the telephone was there and the light was there, all seemed well for a number of years.
That is where I entered the picture. You see I loved going to see ben and visiting Ben, visiting the stump seemed like a good idea. Of course since I was there anyway I and every other 10 year old boy in town commenced a detailed search for our mother’s initials and the date of gift. In fact we spent hours making a detailed archeological search for these valuable initials. Alias none were found. Well, I did find RC’s initials, his had been scored rather recently and proclaimed RC heart JM. I kept my eye on RC and was determined to find who JM was, but RC had an unfortunate encounter with the police, and I never learned who JM might be. I am sure however it matched the criteria.
Needless to say none of us found any initials that might have been our mothers. For several weeks we thought we found my friends Tim’s mother’s initials. After years (approximately 3 weeks) of exhaustive searching, our attention turned to more meaningful pursuits. Strangely, my involvement did not stop with the abandonment of the search for our mothers initials.
Now it may have obviously dawned on some of you, that placing the two tourist attractions together would be a good idea. But, it took us somewhere over 50 years to come to that conclusion. There was fear that same two or less visitors who were visiting Ben might be visiting the stump. But we decided to run that risk so in the late 1980’s we combined these two attractions into one magnificent tourist attraction, which stand in our main park and draws well under 3 visitors per year. I hope someday you can drop by and visit this amazing attraction. It is after all in the mobile travel guide. view the stump here:
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/3343
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Rick