oldest live oaks

Revisiting the Lastrapes (Seven Brothers) Oak

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Lastrapes Oak, Afternoon Light, Washington, LA

On a recent visit to Louisiana, I took a side road off of the Interstate Hwy. to visit the small town of Washington and the Lastrapes (or Seven Brothers) Oak. Located about a mile out of town on State Highway 182, the large old oak still stands proudly and is well-maintained by the Lastrapes family who still owns the property on which the oak grows. When I stopped to re-photograph the tree, there was a work crew doing maintenance on the fence (shown behind the tree in the photo above).

The Lastrapes Oak is the seventh tree listed in Dr. Edwin L. Stephens’ 1934 magazine article in the Louisiana Conservation Review. It is one of the original 43 member trees in the Live Oak Society and is #9 on the Live Oak Society’s registry, which contains a growing list of more than 10,000 member trees. Even my panoramic photograph hardly gives an idea of the massive size and girth of the unusual multiple trunks of this old oak. The main trunk is more than 33 feet in circumference. The largest secondary trunk is almost 30 feet around at a height of 4 feet. This beautiful old tree is one of my favorite live oaks in Louisiana and is surely a monument of a different kind.

The Seven Brothers’ name supposedly came from a story that said the tree was named for seven Lastrapes brothers who had left home to fight in the Civil War. Another variation of the story, described in Ethelyn Orso’s Louisiana Live Oak Lore, claimed that the birth of his seventh son prompted Jean Henri Lastrapes to request that seven oaks be planted; the workers arrived late in the day with the seedlings and temporarily put them in one container (or hole). The business of the days that followed in the cotton fields distracted the workers from ever completing the planting task—and thus the trees grew together, sharing the close proximity of their original planting site. For a complete story of the tree’s history, you can read my original post in this blog.

Whichever story is accurate, the tree is more appropriately referred to today as the Lastrapes Oak, after the family who has owned the property where it resides for several generations and takes pride in caring for the well-being of the historic oak. It is one of the best-maintained ancient oaks in Louisiana.

(Prints of all photos in my blog are available for purchase. For information, email bill@williamguion.com)

Welcome to the 100 Oaks Project

/ williamguion
Edward Douglas White Oak, near Thibodaux, LA

This blog chronicles my search to document the 100 oldest and most notable live oak trees in Louisiana. The elder oaks included in this project are primarily “centenarians” – more than 100 years old. Their sizes range from approximately 17 ft. to 40 ft. in circumference and their lives span a time period stretching between 100 to 600+ years, over several human generations. The oldest oaks documented here were possibly mature trees before Europeans settled Louisiana in the early 1700s.

This project began with a search for the original 43 live oaks that in 1934 became charter members of the Live Oak Society. In that year, Dr. Edwin L. Stephens proposed creating an organization comprised of 100+ year old live oaks in an article he wrote for the Louisiana Conservation Review. From my original search, I found that almost 20% of the original 43 member trees had been lost in the 80 or so years since the Live Oak Society was founded — mostly due to urban expansion, development, storms, pollution, decreasing soil quality, and old age.

The ultimate goal of this effort is to raise awareness for the importance of old live oak trees as an important cultural and historic resource. Every old oak has generations of human stories associated with it and when these trees are gone, part of our local history and culture dies with them.

Live oaks are heritage, heirlooms, and history all rolled into one. On the old land maps, oaks marked where one property line ended and another began. They were a point on the horizon to aim the blade of a plow or the nose of a tractor. They mark where back roads cross and provide a shady spot where neighbors can park their pickups, pass a plastic thermos cup of chicory coffee, and discuss the weather. Duels were fought and honor won or lost under their bowed limbs. People picnic under them, get married under them, dance the two-step under them, and finally when the music ends, are laid to rest alongside their massive roots.

Most areas of Louisiana and the South don’t have laws protecting these gentle icons of Southern culture from removal or abuse by humans and so each year we lose a part of our history and a valuable ecological resource.