BLACKSBURG - A piece of Virginia Tech and Blacksburg history comes down.
Crews are working to get rid of an old sycamore tree on Henderson Lawn.
The tree, which had been standing tall for many years, developed an infection.
For some people, it was an event not to miss. They came with lawn chairs, for a front row seat as the sycamore on the hill was cut down piece by piece.
"Everybody that lives in Blacksburg, we'd always come here for picnic or they would come for concerts on Friday. Everybody would meet under the tree. It's been here years and years," said Kandyce Tuck.
The tree is a link to the past. Some say it was on the Henderson Lawn when Virginia Tech was founded in 1872.
Jeff Kirwan, author of "The Remarkable Tree Book," says,"We have buildings and crumbled up pieces of paper that represent times past, but trees often times were alive during important events in our history."
Experts tried to save the tree, but to no avail. However, what couldn't be saved may be reborn.
"We went down to the large tree and we collected large cuttings," said John Seiler, a forest biologist with Virginia Tech.
Seiler took more than a hundred smaller pieces, hoping one would root.
"Just yesterday (Monday) I couldn't stand it, and I pulled one up and it had roots on the end and replanted it really carefully," Seiler told us.
He feels it's a way to give back what many people in Blacksburg feel they lost.
"I saw Saturday someone had hung poetry on the tree. They had actually met, husband and wife, there on their first date under the tree, so it's real important to them. We just thought if we could tell them, hey you've got this tree, it literally will be a clone of that tree," Seiler thought.
Another sycamore tree will be planted in the area, but an exact space has not been selected.
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