A Place I Live: The Tall Tale of a Fig Tree

Have you ever been the recipient of multiple stories about one thing? Lately I have. I’ve heard stories about a monster of a tree that is said to be over 130 years old. It isn’t just the size of this tree that makes for a tall tale, but the history too. The Moreton Bay Fig Tree that stands at 400 N. West Street was Anaheim’s first Landmark Tree. According to the Anaheim Libraries web site the tree was brought from Australia by Anaheim’s first nurseryman, Timothy Carroll and planted in the late 1800s.

The more recent story I’ve been told is that Walt Disney used the tree as a model for the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House at Disneyland. It is quite the enormous tree so I can see how it would make a fantastic tree to live in. Story has it that the family was given entrance for life to Disneyland for allowing Disney to use the tree as inspiration.

Yesterday we attended an Anaheim Hi Neighbor celebration event for the community gardens at Founder’s Park, also the site of the fig tree. Both Jeremy and I were pretty excited that attendees were invited to take home sprigs of the giant fig tree, propagated from the fruit it bears. I’m sure we’ll have to wait a few decades before our little sprigs give us shade, but we aren’t in any hurry. Who knows, maybe in 130 years there will be some tall tales about our Moreton Bay Fig Tree.