Friendship Oak

A southern live oak that dates to 1487 — when it was a sapling, Columbus had not yet crossed the Atlantic — stands on the Gulf Park campus of the University of Southern Mississippi in Long Beach. By the time the campus opened as Gulf Park College for Women in 1921, Friendship Oak was already 430 years old. According to legend, anyone who walks beneath its branches will remain friends for the rest of their lives. In the 1920s, poet Vachel Lindsay taught at Gulf Park College for Women and read poetry to students beneath the oak. In 1950, Life magazine featured the tree in an article about Gulf Park College, where students attended classes under its canopy. Friendship Oak became the 110th tree registered with the Live Oak Society; at registration circa 1940, the trunk circumference measured 14 feet. In August 2011, the Mississippi Forestry Commission measured the tree at 59 feet in height with a trunk circumference of 19.8 feet and crown spread of 155 feet. The crown covered approximately 16,000 square feet. Main lateral limbs averaged 60 feet from the trunk with an average circumference of 7.5 feet at the trunk. Lateral roots extended 150 feet. In August 2017, one of the main limbs broke due to the weight of new growth and heavy rain; the failed limb was removed in October 2017, and bracing was installed to support other limbs. Hurricane winds have defoliated the oak and subjected its roots to seawater pushed inland as storm surges. The tree survived Hurricane Camille's 200-mph winds in 1969 and Hurricane Katrina's 28-foot storm surge in 2005. At least twice since the mid-1950s, acorns from Friendship Oak have been gathered to produce seedlings for replanting along the Mississippi Gulf Coast to replace live oaks destroyed by Hurricanes Camille and Katrina. Numerous weddings have taken place beneath its branches, most celebrated by former students of Gulf Park College or the University of Southern Mississippi. Free to visit anytime, on the USM Gulf Park campus in Long Beach, right off Beach Boulevard.