'Tis not in forest: With several century trees and robust history, K-State’s trees are a learning experience and a stamp of time
By Tim Schrag ’12
Photos by David Mayes ’96
Editor's note: This story originally ran in the summer issue of K-Stater magazine. Members of the K-State Alumni Association can read more exclusive content like this in each issue.
There are more than 3,500 trees on Kansas State University’s Manhattan campus. They tell a story of a fledgling land-grant institution and its growth into the modern university seen today.
That story began with just a few plantings on the prairie.
In the mid-1800s, two honey locust trees were planted at the property line of Rev.
Elbridge Gale and Elizabeth Gale marking the distinction between their property and
that of Rev. N.O. Preston and Charlotte Preston. Nearby, two red cedar trees were
planted by Ezekial Foster and Jane Greeley Foster to flank the entrance to their home.
The Gale, Preston and Foster properties would be sold to Bluemont Central College
and eventually become home to Kansas State Agricultural College.
Now, one of those honey locust trees stands tall in the quad as the oldest tree on campus. One of the cedars is located south of Eisenhower Hall and stands as one of several additional century trees.
“We can be proud of the work of the many people who developed the campus arboretum,” said Dede Brokesh ’83, a landscape architect and K-State tree historian. “The school alma mater says, ‘I know a spot that I love full well,’ and it aptly describes the lovely garden begun by Rev. Gale and maintained today by caring people at this special place.”
Rev. Gale had a large garden and orchard, which he started planting in 1856, Brokesh
said. In his nursery were a variety of deciduous and evergreen trees, pines, maples,
cedars and spruces. His orchard had apples, pears, peaches and plums. Additionally,
he had a vineyard of grapes. By 1871 he became the school’s first grounds superintendent
tending his garden and orchard, serving as a professor and chair of horticulture and
botany.
He was tasked with building a learning laboratory for students and the citizens of
Kansas. Brokesh said Gale led the charge to plant varieties of trees, plants and shrubs
to see what would grow in Kansas.
“By knowing what to grow, settlers could make a living,” she said. “Rev. Gale’s nursery was a big asset to KSAC and the economy of the state.”
Brokesh said Gale helped secure plantings from Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum
shipped to the campus in 1878. These include the common horse-chestnut and ginkgo
trees located near the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art and a bald cypress tree
located west of Holton Hall.
Over the course of time, a variety of people had a hand in the various trees and shrubbery planted on campus including Prof. Edward Popenoe, Prof. Albert Dickens, Mike Ahearn of K-State Athletics fame, and Prof. L. R. Quinlan, Brokesh said.
“As the school grew, the tree and shrub culture was important to students, especially
since many of them worked in the campus nurseries,” Brokesh said. “Graduating classes
in the 1880s and 1890s honored their time at school with class trees, coming back
year after year to meet with their friends and check on their gifts.”
By 1978 the Division of Facilities took over the management of the trees on the campus.
Brokesh said this tradition has carried on through the memorial and gift tree program, which is maintained by the Division of Facilities. Additionally, Brokesh, Facilities and other campus partners have worked to develop a tree walk which is designed to help identify and educate visitors about the campus’ trees.
Cody Domenghini ’12, assistant professor of landscape management, uses the tree walk
as a tool to help students learn to identify various types of trees. 
“It’s there for people that have an interest in trees and want to go on a little campus adventure,” he said. “They can go and learn about some of these trees.”
“Our main goal right now is to maintain campus safety and clearance and we try to keep things looking pretty nice on the main campus,” said Patrick Standlee, K-State’s arborist.
The division still receives some help from various units on campus, including the Kansas Forest Service, K-State Research and Extension and the Department of Horticulture and Natural Resources. Many of those trees are still used for teaching.
“What we do here on campus with our trees is a great opportunity for us to showcase
the true mission of a land-grant institution,” said Linda Craghead ’86, director of
Facilities Services. “We are able to continue to maintain those trees that have great
historical significance, but also from a standpoint of helping people learn about
everything there is to know about trees from disease to the specific planting locations
for trees, all of those things.”
“I always tell students, we have pines and spruce on our campus because we’re an arboretum,” said Cathie Lavis ’93, ’05, emeritus professor and extension specialist of landscape management. “We need to be showing students trees that might not do well here, just so our students know what they are. But Kansas is the only state that doesn’t have a native pine. What does that tell us about pines? They don’t do well. But some of our really cool old trees are pines. That’s a legacy.”
In 2013 an effort led by students and Lavis helped K-State become designated as a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation.
“The beautiful thing is that the students took ownership,” Lavis said. “They recognize
the importance. And so we would set up our educational tables out in the quad, that’s
really how it started. You have to do an educational program and an arbor planting.
Every year, it’s changed just a little bit, but it’s been
student-driven.”
Along with annual educational arboreal tabling, Lavis said students helped place signage on trees around campus to help the public identify the various species planted throughout the university.
Standlee said the Tree Campus USA designation helped K-State receive federal funding
to replace several trees damaged in a 2021 winter storm and resulted in 100 additional
trees being planted on campus.
“The fact that we use these trees for teaching was a huge part of getting that aid,” he said.
Craghead said through collaborations with those other campus units, the university is in the process of getting the campus certified as a level 1 arboretum set by the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program.
Craghead and Standlee said the ultimate goal would be to earn level 2 certification. There are four levels of accreditation. Being recognized in this way allows the university to advance the planting, study and conservation of the institution’s trees, collaborate with other arboretums and earn distinction in the community.
Earlier this year, facilities launched an app in collaboration with several units on campus to log K-State’s tree inventory on a map and provide details about each tree.
“The arboretum is more of an official designation, because we’ve always been an unofficial
arboretum,” Standlee said. “We’ve always had the inventory to become an arboretum.
It’s just never been done. It’s a designation that shows K State’s commitment to engaging
our students in active learning about trees.” 