In the town of Montello you’ll find what remains of a tree that was once crowned “Wisconsin’s Biggest Tree.”
The Biggest tree in a state filled with Big Trees
Wisconsin has a lot of trees. And in 1978 there was none bigger than the Montello Cottownwood (also known as the Troost Cottonwood after Helen Troost, who used to own the plot of land it grows on).
At the time, the eastern cottonwood (populus deltoides) boasted a trunk diameter of 23.2 feet (at the time, the largest of any species in Wisconsin), towered 138 feet high, and sported a nearly symmetrical crown spread measuring 138 feet across.
Impressive, indeed.
The tree still grows in the middle of Montello where Central Avenue meets Underwood Avenue (also known as Highway 23 and part of the long-defunct Hiawatha Pioneer Trail), right in front of the Marquette County Clerk of Courts and the Marquette County Sheriff’s Department.
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A Broken Crown
Unfortunately, over the decades, the tree has taken a beating from extreme weather and has lost quite a few of its larger limbs. Most notably, its nearly perfect crown was damaged in 2004 when a tornado blew though Montello. An ignoble end for such a noble tree.
Today, the tree isn’t big enough to be included among the DNR’s collection of Wisconsin Champion Trees. Currently, the biggest eastern cottonwood (108 feet tall, 293 inch circumference, and a crown of 105.5 feet wide), which is smaller than the Montello Cottonwood in its heyday, can be found in Door County in Institute, next door to the Institute Saloon.
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You can see an image of the Montello Cottonwood in its glory days (taken in 1982) online at the Wisconsin Historical Society. That particular image is included in R. Bruce Allison’s Every Root an Anchor: Wisconsin’s Famous and Historic Trees.
Montello Cottonwood
The Biggest Tree in Wisconsin
- 120 Central Ave, Montello, WI 53949
- GPS Coordinates: 43.793348, -89.331224
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