History for the Future
by
Carolyn Saul Logan
When we talk about history, the past is what leaps to mind—pioneers, horse-drawn wagons, spinning wheels, and the like. Out at the Humboldt County Museum, we not only deal with the past; we are making history for the future.
We are planting trees.
Norm Caldwell spearheaded this project and has so far planted about thirty-five trees. He has arranged them around the perimeter of the plot where the Clancy building stands.
Norm has selected trees that are native to Iowa. They include five different types of oak, four maples, walnuts, a couple of birches, sycamores, catalpas and many others. These are all very young trees and it will be years before they mature.
The plan is for each tree to have a label that gives its phylum, genus, species, and name. The extra bonus is that each tree’s label will also give the uses it had for the settlers of this area. For example, the white oak yielded high grade lumber and made tight barrels. The familiar boxelder tree gave wood that was good for furniture, boxes, and spools and bobbins for the spinner and weaver. The Eastern Black Walnut was used in valuable furniture and gunstocks. The silver maple provided wood for furniture, boxes, crates, and railroad ties. The wood from some of the other trees was turned into artificial limbs, caskets, flooring, tool handles, and parts of vehicles, such as early autos. The pignut hickory was burned to smoke meat. Of course, they all could be used for fuel, and that and cooperage (barrels) was the yield the Black Ash.
If you wonder how big these trees will grow, you can look at the old Silver Maple that is in front of the Hardy Church. Museum director Connie Overby reports that “just about everybody who tours the museum takes a picture of it.” It is old and it casts a wide area of shade on the lawn beneath. Its trunk bears the scars of indignities inflicted over generations. It is a beautiful, stately tree.
We won’t be around to see the trees we have planted reach their full growth. However, in that distant future, the trees will be a living record of their importance in the history of Humboldt County.