{"id":2946,"slug":"treaty-oak-austin-texas","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Treaty Oak is five hundred years old and a quarter of what it was. The live oak on Baylor Street in Austin is the last of the Council Oaks — the grove where the Comanche and Tonkawa held councils before there was a city, and where, by the legend that gives the tree its name, Stephen F. Austin signed the first boundary agreement between the settlers and the tribes. The other thirteen trees are gone — cut down one by one as the city grew over the grove. The survivor was saved in 1937 when the city bought the lot to keep it from being developed.","The poisoning was deliberate and nearly worked. In 1989 a man named Paul Cullen dosed the tree with Velpar — a herbicide designed to kill hardwoods — reportedly in a twisted reading of the old legend that the tree's leaves could bind a lover. The tree collapsed: two-thirds of it died, the canopy that had spread a hundred and twenty-eight feet reduced to the limbs that could be saved. Cullen got nine years. The tree got a feeding program, soil replacement, and a community response that included Ross Perot writing a check and schoolchildren sending cards.","Treaty Oak recovered — the remaining quarter grew back enough that the tree is still standing, still producing acorns, in a pocket park between downtown buildings it predates by four centuries. The arborists' assessment is that it will survive; the canopy that's there is healthy and thickening. The tree that survived the city that killed the grove survived the man who tried to finish it.","Treaty Oak is the archive's survivor file — the tree that was sacred to the people who were there first, that outlasted the grove that was cut down, and that survived being poisoned on purpose because the city decided it was worth saving. The oak's legend is old; the attempt on its life is recent; the tree is still there."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Treaty Oak is the archive's tree file — the five-hundred-year-old Council Oak that watched Austin grow, lost the grove it was part of, was nearly murdered in 1989, and came back on a quarter of its former canopy because the city refused to lose it.","A tree that survived poison keeps its roots — the file's suggestion being that Treaty Oak's hold is literal: the roots that go down four centuries deep, in the city that tried to kill it and then wouldn't let it die."]}],"name":"Treaty Oak","aliases":[],"type":"NATURAL","type_label":"Natural","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","NATURAL_WONDER","HISTORIC_LANDMARK"],"groups":["legends"],"desc":"The 500-year-old oak that survived the 1989 poisoning.","full_desc":"Treaty Oak is a natural site in Austin, Texas. The 500-year-old oak that survived the 1989 poisoning. Its signature presence is Treaty Oak — the figure the file’s accounts keep returning to. The dossier holds 2 reported claims, 1 legend, 1 documented fact and 1 named or described presence — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Austin","county":null,"state":"Texas","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.298622,"lon":-97.754134,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"TX batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":2741,"type":"LEGEND","description":"The treaty legend is documented folklore. The figure answers to Treaty Oak in the retellings. The landscape at Treaty Oak is the claim's whole setting: Texas wilderness with a name for the unexplained. The story is documented as legend — recorded and retold, never verified as fact. The report is preserved in sources like 'Treaty Oak'. As folklore it's unkillable: the story is too good, and the place too fitting, to let go.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"Treaty Oak","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Treaty Oak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak_(Austin,_Texas)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":2742,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence at the tree. Open country keeps its stories differently — Treaty Oak in Austin, Texas files its reports in weather and distance. The file holds testimony rather than proof; the claim remains anecdotal. The report is preserved in sources like 'Treaty Oak'. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Treaty Oak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak_(Austin,_Texas)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The tree’s ~500-year age and the 1989 poisoning are documented. Treaty Oak's documented past — geological and human — is the verified layer beneath the legends. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Treaty Oak'. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Treaty Oak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak_(Austin,_Texas)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"The treaty legend is documented folklore. The landscape at Treaty Oak is the claim's whole setting: Texas wilderness with a name for the unexplained. The story is documented as legend — recorded and retold, never verified as fact. Sources including 'Treaty Oak' keep the claim in circulation. The story outranks the documentation, which is how you know it's folklore.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Treaty Oak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak_(Austin,_Texas)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[{"name":"Treaty Oak","claimed_identity":"Treaty Oak","verified":null,"summary":"The treaty legend is documented folklore. The presence goes by Treaty Oak. Open country keeps its stories differently — Treaty Oak in Austin, Texas files its reports in weather and distance. The named presence is what turns a haunting into a household. The account stays in the file — reported, retold, unresolved.","behavior":"The treaty legend is documented folklore.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Treaty Oak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak_(Austin,_Texas)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Natural site; conditions vary seasonally—check the managing agency for access.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Treaty Oak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak_(Austin,_Texas)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Treaty Oak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak","desc":"Topics referred to by the same term","extract":"Treaty Oak may refer to:\n\nTreaty Oak (Austin, Texas), extant\nTreaty Oak (Jacksonville), in Florida, extant\nTreaty Oak (New York City), toppled in a storm in March 1909\nTreaty Oak (Washington, D.C.), felled in 1953\nTreaty Oak Revival, an American country music band based in Odessa, Texas","img":null,"score":77},"counts":{"claims":2,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}