Whoever cut down Fort Worth’s Homeless Christmas Tree also took this memorial bench
The family of a woman who cared for Fort Worth’s famous “Homeless Christmas Tree” before her 2006 death is asking whoever took her memorial bench to kindly return it.
The family of Carla Christian was devastated to learn earlier this week that an unknown person or persons had chopped down the old mimosa tree — a favorite roadside attraction on Interstate 30 since the 1980s. Whoever cut the old tree also removed a 5-foot-tall baby tree — a sapling of the original mimosa — on the same hilltop, and made off with the heavy stone bench.
Written on the bench in large letters was the message: “The Homeless Christmas Tree. In Loving Memory of Carla Lynette Christian.”
Christian was one of the volunteers who frequently visited and sometimes decorated the mimosa, which grew alone on a hill on the north side of the freeway, between Oakland Boulevard and Beach Street.
After her death in 2006, her son and other friends and relatives placed the bench on the highway right-of-way, so that visitors to the hilltop could meditate and take in the view of the tree and nearby downtown.
“That bench is very heavy, and whoever it was might not have taken the time to take it down to their truck,” Christian’s son, Christian Rock Meyer, said in a text message. Meyer said his friends are planning to search the area in the coming days, to see if someone perhaps discarded the bench nearby.
“They might have just dragged it down the hill to that fence by the river,” he said, “and thrown it over the fence.”
The “Homeless Christmas Tree” inspired a children’s book originally published in 2005.
Although the tree never grew to an imposing height, it was an easily-recognized symbol for those commuting on I-30 from Dallas to Fort Worth. In the evenings, the tree was often silhouetted by a North Texas sunset, for motorists heading westbound on their commutes from Dallas, as traffic headed down an incline toward downtown Fort Worth.
The tree died in 2014, although visitors continued to decorate it. Also, in 2017, Christian’s family planted a sapling from the original tree on the same hill, and that baby tree had recently grown to about 5 feet tall.
Although mimosas aren’t native to North Texas and aren’t known for hardiness, Christian’s family was optimistic the baby tree would survive and reach maturity.
But then it was cut down and taken away.
The hilltop that had been the tree’s home is owned by the Texas Department of Transportation, but officials from that agency have said they are unaware of anyone stepping onto the property in recent days and removing the trees and bench.
North Texans have taken to social media to speak out against the removal of the tree. Several people reported seeing a man in a white pickup on the hilltop Saturday afternoon (Dec. 26). State transportation department officials have said they were unaware of anyone being on the property at that time.
The mimosa was recognized by Fort Worth’s forestry office in 2009 as one of 49 “heritage trees” with historical significance in the city.
Meyer said others also used the tree as a memorial of their loved ones.
“There were also two other grave markers up there — memorial stones,” he said. “There are people that also put their ashes up there, of their loved ones.”
This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 5:30 AM.
