Solemnly growing near the northwest corner of Yerkes Observatory’s fifty-acre campus, a particular White Oak stands strong. Born in 1773, this White Oak predates the Declaration of Independence by three years and the statehood of Wisconsin by seventy-five. On this parcel of paradise in 1895, ground was broken to build Yerkes Observatory which would open in 1897 as the first astrophysics PhD program in the world. Following the ribbon-cutting of this massive observatory and school, a heliostat observatory was built in the oak’s shade. The Snow Observatory, named after benefactor Helen Snow’s family, contained the solar telescope that would be moved to California in 1904. Built and first used adjacent to the White Oak, the Snow Telescope would be utilized by George Ellery Hale atop Mt. Wilson as he discovered that sunspots were magnetic fields and colder than the rest of the sun. Eventually, the Snow Observatory was dismantled to use its wood for constructing a still-standing maintenance shop while the White Oak continued to flourish. 

In 1906, John Charles Olmsted came to the site to design the landscape of the campus. He was of the famed Olmsted Brothers firm which branched out after their father Frederick Law Olmsted’s passing. Thankfully, John Charles’ plan involved the then 133 year-old oak. During the Palm Sunday tornado of 1965, the White Oak narrowly missed toppling as the funnel swept across Observatory Place just to its north. This past summer as tornadoes ripped through Williams Bay and violent winds took down many trees on the Yerkes campus, the oak held firm. And now, going into 2025 as indigenous family after indigenous family, astronomer after astronomer, and visitor after visitor have passed through this significant site in the history of science itself, the Yerkes White Oak looms proudly over our new five-hive apiary, pollinator meadow, and network of prairie and woodland trails in our ever-restoring arboretum. 

Considering that in 1951, William Morgan at Yerkes discovered the spiral-arm shape of our galaxy coupled with Wisconsin being heralded as America’s Dairyland, it seems fitting to name this tree the Milky Way White Oak. 

Yerkes Observatory received two 2024 Heritage Oak Awards from the Geneva Lake Conservancy for oldest oak found for 2024 in Walworth County (251 years) and Best Story.