It’s Christmastime in Fort Worth: That ‘little tree on the hill’ on I-30 lives again
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Christmas in Fort Worth
Fort Worth (and North Texas) has influenced American celebrations of Christmas more than you may know. Check out these stories for some Fort Worth ties to the holiday.
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For 35 years, it was Fort Worth’s own “Charlie Brown Christmas tree,” a scraggly, lopsided mimosa alone on an east side hilltop that became a celebrated shrine for motorists on Interstate 30.
The hilltop is bare and forlorn now, three years after the long-dead mimosa and pounds of often-gaudy ornaments were removed and the state highway property cleared.
But the tree that for years was a community symbol of those alone and unloved at the holidays — nicknamed the “Homeless Christmas Tree” — lives today.
Third-generation saplings from the landmark tree are for sale for $14.98-$29.98 at a Fort Worth nursery, with part of the money going for the Presbyterian Night Shelter.
“People may not know it at first,” said Sue Weston of Weston Gardens in Bloom, 8101 Anglin Drive, a 40-year nursery in far southeast Fort Worth.
“But when you tell them it’s from the little tree up on the hill they go, ‘Oh, OK.’ ”
We have saplings thanks to Fort Worth city foresters. They rescued seeds from the mimosa, designated a City Heritage Tree.
The tree stood — well, leaned — on a hill a half-mile west of Oakland Boulevard, just past mile marker 18.
It was the subject of a 2008 children’s book, “The Homeless Christmas Tree,” by author Leslie M. Gordon (TCU Press, 42 pages, $19.95).
“I know it is remembered, but that does diminish with the passing of each year,” Gordon wrote in an online message.
There is still confusion and resentment over why the tree was removed. Nobody has ever owned up to clearing the hill.
But the dead tree had become a traffic hazard.
Motorists stopped to see it. More stopped to add more ornaments, year-round holiday decorations, religious messages and even business signs.
“People still express sorrow and rage at the trees being cut down,” Gordon wrote. A small sapling had taken root alongside the original dead tree.
A bench was also removed that honored the memory of Carla Christian (1948-2006), a 1970s nightclub band lead singer from Arlington who wound up living at the Night Shelter.
The tree was decorated by admirers as early as 1983. But sometime around 1995, Christian decided to decorate and redefine the tree as a symbol of love for homeless people.
“It was just an old raggedy shrub, but it’s grown into a pretty tree,” she said in a 2001 Star-Telegram interview, one of several she did as a gregarious Night Shelter resident who became a sort of celebrity.
“I didn’t think it would live but it did. It blossomed.”
In her later years, she could no longer climb the hill to decorate the tree.
So naturally, she called the fire department.
Firefighters from Station 14 took her up the hill.
A son, Christian Rock Meyer, said he still hopes for a memorial somewhere nearby to replace the tree.
The hill is state highway land, but it backs up to the city’s Gateway Park along a mountain biking trail.
A flicker of hope returned to the hilltop Thursday night.
For one night, unnamed donors climbed up from the highway again, posted an artificial Christmas tree and lighted it anew as the city skyline glimmered in the distance.
Their anonymous Facebook post: “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas on the hill!”
Now show everyone the true light of Christmas.
This story was originally published December 15, 2023 at 9:36 AM.
