We went to check out the old homestead at 419 Holly Avenue in Sanford today. There's a new house on the lot and the wooded lot across the street where we used to clean cat fish has some kind of an industrial building on it now. We didn’t see any hoses or screwdrivers sticking out of the ground, so I guess they dug them all up when they built the new house. That’s another story…

    

We left the old neighborhood behind and went over to check out Big Tree Swamp.

The “Big Tree” is still the same! This tree has been a landmark for years. The Seminole Indians and other Native American Indians who lived throughout Central Florida used this tree as a landmark. 

                                                              

In the late 1800s, the tree attracted visitors even though much of the surrounding land was swamp; reaching the tree was done by leaping from log to log. A walkway was later constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In 1925, a hurricane destroyed the top of the tree, reducing its original height of 165 ft. to its present height of more than 129 feet.

The Senator is named for Senator M.O. Overstreet, who donated the tree and surrounding land to Seminole County for a park in 1927. In 1929, former president Calvin Coolidge visited The Senator and dedicated the site with a commemorative bronze plaque. The plaque and portions of an iron fence were stolen by vandals in 1945 and never recovered.

Because of its unusual size, considerable controversy as to The Senator's true species has existed. In the 1950s, the tree was reclassified as a Pond Cypress, only to be reverted back to the classification of Bald Cypress some thirty years later.

                                                               

As of 1993, The Senator is estimated to be 3,400-3,500 years old. The tree's volume had previously been estimated at 4,300 cubic feet, but a 2006 survey by Will Blozan of the Native Tree Society has measured the volume at well over 5,100 cubic feet, making The Senator not only the largest Bald Cypress in the United States, but also the largest tree of any species east of the Mississippi River.
The Big Tree has a neighbor. Located 40 feet from The Senator is another old cypress named Lady Liberty. It is 89 feet high 10 feet in diameter, and is estimated to be 2000 years old.

                                                                      

It is an amazing feeling to be in the presence of something still alive that dates back to the time when Moses was around.
(Research and partial quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator )