The old sycamore tree

John H. Dixon's Big Tree.

On the east side of the White River, in Highland Township, on the land of JOHN H. DIXON, stands the giant tree of the forest. This monster old sycamore tree is perhaps a thousand years old, nearly a hundred feet high and measures thirteen feet in diameter. We undertake to say that the tall sycamore of the White River Valley, rather beats the Tall Sycamore of the Wabash Valley, by at least inety feet in height and thirty feet in circumference. Our old tall, giant sycamore never meddles with politics or religion, and therefore occupies a very high position among men, and we hope the old tree may always be spared by the storms and the woodsman's axe.

On the third day of August, 1875, at five o'clock p. m., when the water in White River bottoms was at the highest mark, Mr. JOHN D. ALLEN, JOHN W. PADGETT, JOHN W. CARMICHEAL, THOMAS WALKER and WILLIAM GOODWIN, paddled JOHN D. ALLEN'S big canoe, and ran it up in the fork of Dixon's big sycamore tree, and on the south side of each tree, above the fork, cut the notch for high water mark for the year 1875. Having a bottle full of good whiskey, they all took a big dram, and had a grand, high old time, while standing on the fork of that tree.

Another source states that a that a railroad spike from a railroad tie was used - and then again in 1913 another marker was placed two feet higher for a flood that exceeded the previous marker.


The tree forked into two branched 15 feet above the ground. In the September 1915 issue of the American Genetic Association, it reported that as far as they could discover through research of pictures and descriptions of 337 non-nut bearing tress in North America that it was the largest one that was growing. A picture of it was on exhibit at the Panama Exposition in California in 1914-5. The Big Four Railroad advertised it on their menus on trains that ran rom Indianapolis to Chicago.

In 1915 the age of the tree was estimated to be 500 years old, height was 150 feet and the spread 100 feet. Circumference 1 foot above the ground was forty-five feet 3 inches. The circumference five feet abovethe ground was forty-two feet and three inches. The east branch was twenty-seven feet and eight inches and the west branch was twenty-three feet and three inches.

1925 The Worthington Chamber of Commerce started a drive to bring a 20 foot section of a limb from the big Sycamore tree that grew in the White River bottoms about 1 1/2 miles east of Worthington in Highland Township on the Sloan-Dixon farm into town.


The tree in the fall of 1924 had been split apart during a wind storm. The small portion of the tree that remained standing was cut down in 1925 by Wallace Noble Short, who was considered to be a noble man in stature. In fact, he became a legend himself as he cut down and removed the magnificent tree with only man power and simple tools. The west limb, which was the smaller branch of the tree, was loaded on to his personal pick-up truck and hauled into the Worthington Park and was placed upon a cement foundation and a roof over it, where it is still on display today to the public.


In 1985 Sam Solliday and Wallace Short decided that it was time to put a marker up beside the piece of limb - on it read the discription of the tree as follows: