The Floyd Medical Arts Center Community Oak

The Floyd Medical Arts Center Community Oak is a very large and very old Southern Red Oak. It has a diameter at breast height of seventy-two inches, a circumference of 18.8 feet, and a crown spread of one-hundred-thirty feet. The height of the tree is eighty-five feet. The date of planting is unknown.

The site of the tree, Floyd Medical Center, 308 Shorter Avenue, Rome GA 30165, is a site surrounded by history. Cherokee Nation leaders, John Ross and Major Ridge, once established residences near the site of the tree. One mile south of the tree is the entrance to Marshall Forest, once part of Cherokee Nation lands and one of the few remaining old-growth forests in the Ridge and Valley Province, a geographical corridor that extends from Pennsylvania to Alabama. The property on which the tree grew is also on the site of the Battle of Rome during the Civil War. Numerous artifacts from the Civil War have been recovered here. In 1910, Shorter Female College, formerly Cherokee Baptist Female College, relocated to the 150 acre hilltop across the street from the tree.

Dr. William S. Davis, who nominated the tree for the Register writes, "The Oak is a magnificent, stately, and very beautiful tree. It has stood for generations and should be preserved and memorialized for future generations and for the beauty of Rome. It is truly a significant and historic tree that brings joy and pleasure to all who see it."