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Vandals have felled the iconic
"honking tree" just south of Two Harbors in northern Minnesota,
upsetting the residents of the small northern Minnesota town
accustomed to tooting their horns whenever they went by.

      Lake County Sheriff's Department dispatcher John Brandt said a
state transportation worker called it in Thursday morning. He found
the tall, lone, white pine on its side.

      "He was driving up to work in Two Harbors here and drove past
there. He said something didn't look right, so he turned back
around. The tree was laying there. Someone had cut it down with a
chainsaw," Brandt said.

      The tree has stood in the grassy median of the Two Harbors
expressway for decades. It was called the "honking tree" because
of the local custom to honk when driving past the tree. No one
knows how the tradition got started.


      It was also known to some as "Charlie's tree" for Charlie J.
Hensley, who was chief inspector when the expressway was built in
the 1960s. He died in 1967.


      "He used to sit there (under the tree) and have his lunch,"
said Minnesota Department of Transportation regional spokesman John
Bray. "He ordered the contractor to make sure that while the
expressway was being built, that tree not be touched."


      The tall pine stood about three miles south of Two Harbors. It
was nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic
Trees, a list kept by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit American
Forests.


      Plans to save the tree trunk were already being made Thursday
afteroon. 


"There are a lot of ideas floating around," said Steve
Baublitz, the MnDOT worker who reported the downed tree. 


One
suggestion has been to carve it into an image to put on display,
but nothing has been decided.


      Word of the vandalism spread quickly through town. Mayor Randy
Bolen mentioned it at an early morning downtown business
association meeting. 

At the SuperOne store, employee Treasaigh
Anderson was shocked by the news.

      "It was a tradition for us to honk as we headed home," she
said. "The kids would say we had to honk for each one of them as
we went by. When I was a kid, whenever I saw that tree I knew I was
almost home. I'm almost in tears."

      Alicia Larson of Two Harbors stopped to take a photo on Friday.


"It's like a memorial, everyone knows that tree," she said.
"It's been spray painted before, but why would somebody just cut it
down?"
      


      Information from: Duluth News Tribune,
http://www.duluthsuperior.com

Gallery

Vandals have felled the iconic
"honking tree" just south of Two Harbors in northern Minnesota,
upsetting the residents of the small northern Minnesota town
accustomed to tooting their horns whenever they went by.


Vandals chop down Two Harbors' 'honking tree'

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