Trees of Treloar

The Trees of Treloar

Thousands of riders from around Missouri and the world pass by the Treloar Trailhead on the Katy Trail every year. What if every single visitor left Treloar inspired to plant trees? That’s the goal of the Trees of Treloar!

Much of the landscape that the Katy Trail traverses is near the Missouri River. The vast, fertile fields of the river bottom near Treloar are now planted to corn and soybeans, but that was not always the case. Before the river was straightened, channelized, and secured by levees a century ago, it wandered over flat river bottoms. It was a land of dense and varied forests, not cropland that Lewis and Clark found when they came upriver. Today remnants of the old forests can still be seen from the Katy Trail. Huge oaks, pecans and cottonwoods dot the river bottom landscape. Whether they are called wolf trees or line trees, these sentinels are always majestic. They have witnessed history we can only read about. Centuries ago, they saw the lives of the Osage and other native peoples unfold and sheltered soldiers from both sides of the Civil War as they floated past or camped beneath their canopy.

On the site of the old Treloar Bar and Grill — the “town center” of Treloar for decades — the Trees of Treloar was created. The old bar had fallen into disrepair and was beyond saving - its former site found a new calling as a native tree arboretum.

A place that was a big part of Treloar’s past is now going to be part of its future, and provide a place to make the future a better one! In the fall of 2020, Magnificent Missouri, with the help of native tree advocates and experts Bill Spradley of Trees, Forests and Landscapes and Mike Rood of Pea Ridge Forest created a native tree planting on the old bar site, just across from the Katy Trail Trailhead in Treloar.

According to Bill and Mike, “Planting trees is what we were trained to do at the University of Missouri School of Forestry, and that is what we have done for decades. But for us, this project was different: We donated trees and planted them to improve a community and provide education. Virtually all of these trees were grown at Pea Ridge Forest, just a few miles west of where they are now planted. This tree planting will bring food and shelter for birds and wildlife, with beauty and shade for thousands of folks who pass by on the Katy Trail.”

Thirty-five individual trees were selected that are indigenous to the region and that formerly covered the nearby floodplain. The planting consists of eighteen species, including shade trees like bur oak, pecan, swamp white oak, hackberry, Kentucky coffeetree, and sycamore. Understory trees like sassafras, American fringetree, persimmon, and pawpaw will give spectacular fall color, spring flowers, and edible fruit for wildlife and those folks who pass by. Special care was given to locating species on the site where they will thrive, given drainage and light conditions. The Trees of Treloar is a planting that is meant to spark more of its kind. The giants we see in the fields along the Katy Trail were probably not placed there by our ancestors. Most likely, they were planted by industrious squirrels.

Sometimes, nature intervened: Floodwaters washed an acorn to a fertile bit of ground, or the high wind blew a seed to a sunny place where it could sprout. Miraculously, quite a few of those seeds and acorns survived the elements and grew into the towering cottonwoods, pecans, oaks, and sycamores we see today.

But with the cultivation and continuing development of the land along the river, these “accidental” trees will not be as plentiful in the future. It is time to be more intentional.

The creation of the Trees of Treloar coincides with a new and larger planting initiative. Magnificent Missouri will work with Missouri State Parks and Forest ReLeaf to find appropriate places along the Trail and trailside farms to plant tomorrow’s giants.

Meridith Perkins, Executive Director of Forest ReLeaf, says of the tree planting to come, “As these native trees are planted, they will engage and delight tens of thousands of walkers and cyclists on the Katy Trail each year. Citizen volunteers and residents of Missouri’s river towns will experience the power of planting a tree and living alongside that tree as it grows.”

For more information about Magnificent Missouri and the Trees of Treloar visit MagnificentMissouri. org.

Dan Burkhardt

(Cover) The Treloar Mercantile Building, built in 1896 for the arrival of the Katy Railroad and used by Magnificent Missouri for special events, is across the street from the Trees of Treloar. (Photo: Dan Burkhardt)

(Left) From left to right: Bill Spradley, Dan Burkhardt and Mike Rood preparing to plant Missouri native trees grown locally at Pea Ridge Forest (Photo: Connie Burkhardt)