A Brief History of the Trees of Reed College

1909: Reed College founded on 86 acres of Crystal Springs Farm, purchased through the estate of Simeon Gannett Reed.
1911: First classes held.
1933: First major planting of trees on the Reed campus. View a list of the types of trees that were planted.
1938: Una V. Davies ’38 writes Vascular Plants of the Reed Campus, a complete botanical inventory, as her undergraduate thesis in the biology department. She notes the existence of a large arboretum where Vollum College Center now stands.
1940: Writing in the February issue of Reed College Notes, biology professor Demorest Davenport describes the trees on the Reed campus and the work of Harvey Davis in grounds and buildings. Davenport notes that two ginkgos have just been transplanted from the arboretum to a place on either side of the walk leading up to the library. Read the full text.
1984: William L. Owen MAT ’59 donates to the college a thorough study identifying the relative value and condition of the campus trees. As a result of this study, a specific budget category is created for an ongoing tree maintenance program.
1992: Phyllis Reynolds and Stan Lindstrom complete a thorough taxonomic identification of the trees on the Reed campus, including maps. This was the origin of our electronic database.
1994: Trees of Reed is produced. See Townsend Angell’s introduction to that text for a full account of the process.
1997: The initial “Trees of Reed” website goes online.
2001–02: Niels Proctor ’91 spends six months checking the location and identification of every tree in the landscaped areas of campus (more than 1,000 in all). He creates 33 new color maps, writes new descriptions of the campus, takes several hundred photographs, and renovates the Trees website.