St. John Cathedral Oak

The oak has been measured for nearly a century. In 1929 Edwin Lewis Stephens, the university's first president, recorded 19 feet around, and the tree opened his Live Oak Trail tours. In May 2008 the arborist Jim Foret measured 28 feet 8 inches around, 126 feet high and a crown spread of 210 feet; in May 2015 he found 29 feet 6 inches and credited two decades of soil care. It was one of the 43 original members of the Live Oak Society, and a fence has protected its roots since 1995.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vermilionville — 1.7 mi
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 7.5 mi
  Nearly 10,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and cypress-tupelo swamp at the south end of Lake Martin, owned by The Nature Conservancy, with a boardwalk and a rookery of egrets, spoonbills and alligators.
• Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site — 13 mi
  A bayou-side state site on former Attakapas hunting ground, with a raised Creole cottage of about 1815, a reproduction 1800 farmstead and its slave quarters, and the story behind Longfellow's Evangeline.
• St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church — 14 mi
  The Mother Church of the Acadians, founded in 1765 on St. Martin Square in St. Martinville, with a late 1870s Lourdes grotto and, a block away, the Evangeline Oak on Bayou Teche.

More markers nearby

• The Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist — steps away
• General Alfred Mouton — steps away
• Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette — steps away
• Lafayette Museum / Le Musée de Lafayette — 0.2 mi