The Liberty Tree is the focal point and anchor of Magic Kingdom’s Liberty Square. And it’s real. It was transplanted from elsewhere on property to Liberty Square, already a fully mature, enormous oak weighing in at more than 35 tons and around 40 feet tall by 60 feet wide. It’s still thriving in its new home today, well over a century old.
The tree is meant to evoke the original Liberty Tree in Boston, the famous gathering place associated with colonial protest and the Sons of Liberty. Lanterns would be hung from Liberty Trees after acts of resistance like the Boston Tea Party. Our own Liberty Tree here in Liberty Square boasts thirteen lanterns, meant to represent each of the original colonies.
And so the enormous oak manages to accomplish several things all at once: scenery for an otherwise stark brick-and-colonial-architecture land, anchor symbol for this section of the park, and storytelling tool. It’s a great example of how Imagineering can make a place feel emotionally real without most guests even realizing how or why. It gives Liberty Square gravity and age and meaning without screaming a history lesson into your face.
It’s rumored that acorns from the tree have been used to grow over 500 young oaks all around Walt Disney World property, with two larger successor trees also being cultivated to preserve the lineage should anything ever happen to the original.
Also? I just love this photograph, which I took one day recently while roaming the park with my camera and 35mm lens: 1/2500 second, f/1.4, ISO 100.