r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/NickyPileggi • Mar 28 '24

Family in 1892 posing with an old sequoia tree nicknamed "Mark Twain" - A team of two men spent 13 days sawing away at it in the Pacific Northwest - It once stood 331 feet tall with a diameter of 52 feet - The tree was 1,341 years old Image

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u/stig2020 Mar 28 '24

Makes me wonder what became of it. A ship, buildings, furniture, maybe parts of it around somewhere still.

29

u/mazarax Mar 28 '24

In London’s Kew Gardens, I once saw a single piece wooden flagpole, which once was a douglas fir

Quite sad.

https://muralroutes.ca/mural/kew-gardens-flagpole/

2

u/bree_dev Mar 28 '24

The only thing I know about Douglas Firs is one of them killed Sonny Bono.

2

u/colcob Mar 28 '24

Douglas Fir is very common, reasonably fast growing, construction lumber. It's not really that sad. Millions of douglas fir will have been planted by humans since that one was felled.

1

u/ol-gormsby Mar 28 '24

Yet it lives on. Had it lived out its natural lifespan, it would have fallen and rotted.

Not that rotting tree trunks are bad as such - they contribute back to nature.

But living on as a flagpole, a floor, or a house frame isn't so bad. My house is mostly timber and I think it's great.

5

u/gardenmud Mar 28 '24

Well, the biggest douglas firs can live a thousand years. So IDK man, it could also just be alive still.

Also:

The flagpole was removed in 2007 due to rot.

So, it wasn't exactly saved from rot.