Giant century-old elm to come down this fall
<p>A 100-year-old American elm stands outside the Museum at Central School. The tree, one of many in the area affected by Dutch elm disease, is marked to be cut down this fall.</p>
<p>This American elm that has stood for 100 years in Kalispell is destined to be cut down this fall. </p>
<p>A squirrel maneuvers through the death branches of a 100-year-old American elm outside the Museum at Central School on Monday.</p>
By TOM LOTSHAW
The Daily Inter Lake
Leaves are changing and falling all over town. But Kalispell’s historic Museum at Central School will lose a longtime lawn companion once and for all this autumn when the city cuts down its already leafless 100-year-old American elm.
The tree hasn’t had any leaves of its own to drop for several years. And it’s one of 44 bare elms Kalispell has marked to be cut down this fall after succumbing to Dutch elm disease.
“It’s sad,” Parks and Recreation Director Mike Baker said of the museum’s leafless elm and the fungal disease’s impact on Kalispell’s canopy.
The elm at the museum grew up alongside the former Central School.
The rest of Kalispell’s elms were planted at about the same time “and have had a tremendous impact on the community and its neighborhoods,” Baker said.
The dying elms are some of Kalispell’s oldest and largest trees. And they once were the second-most-abundant tree in the city, numbering almost 400 two decades ago.
Over the last five years, Kalispell already has cut down about 250 of its elms. A $100,000 state grant helped cover those costs.
That grant money is gone and no more are in sight, leaving the last of the city’s elms to be cut down on the city’s dime as they eventually fall prey to a disease that has devastated elm populations around the country.
The disease is biting into the special urban forestry assessment that Kalispell levies on property owners. The levy generates about $200,000 a year — money needed not only for other tree removals but also pruning and efforts to address a backlog of tree planting requests.
“Economically, it taxes our budget to put most of our funding toward Dutch elm disease when we could put it toward other aspects of our urban forest,” Baker said.
After these 44 elms are cut down — a task expected to start later this fall and keep crews busy through winter — Kalispell will have about 100 American elms left standing along its streets.
Elms must go two years without any green leaves or pose an immediate safety hazard before they are put on the city’s priority list to be cut down.
The Museum at Central School elm was picked for that list several years ago, but Director Gil Jordan asked for a “stay of execution” to give an arborist a chance to try and treat and save the tree.
That proved unsuccessful.
“Now in this round I’m sure ours is coming down because it’s deader than a doornail,” Jordan said. “And it will start dropping limbs on cars soon.”
Old pictures of the former Central School building show the young elm growing on its lawn in the early 1900s. The school opened in 1894.
It’s not the only tree with old roots in the museum’s park-like lawn.
Other grown trees casting the area in shade include a silver maple, two ash, four lindens and two maples — with six of those trees also believed to have been planted shortly after the school opened.
“I’ve got pictures that show the museum within a month or two of when it was built and ones that were within 10 to 15 years showing a bunch of young trees, all about 15 feet high and in the right spots for the mature trees that are here now,” Jordan said.
The museum and the city haven’t made any special plans for the elm coming down after 100 years.
“We had one volunteer say, ‘Why don’t we get a chain-saw volunteer to come in and carve an eagle out of the stump,’ but probably it will just get taken down,” Jordan said. “Planting another tree would be wonderful. It is the city’s yard and tree and museum, but if they can’t do it, we’ll look into doing it.”
The elms cut down this fall won’t all be replaced with new trees. “There will be new trees planted, but not in every location,” Baker said.
“At each site, we’ll go through an evaluation on whether a tree can be placed back in there. If we remove three trees we may only plant two. But wherever there’s a tree warranted and we can justify it, we’ll be putting a new tree back in there as soon as possible.”
The goal is to keep Kalispell’s urban forest healthy and intact long after all of its elms are gone.
“It’s very apparent throughout the community what kind of toll Dutch elm disease has taken,” Baker said. “Those [elm] trees are definitely dead. You sit in the middle of the block with all the other trees leafed out and the canopy looking awesome, and there’s not a single leaf on them. They’re just a bunch of bare branches.”
Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.