Jim Miller stands near an oak tree that was recently declared as one of the largest in the state Friday, February 5, 2021, near Diana. (Les Hassell/News-Journal Photo)

Not far outside of Longview near Diana in Harrison County stands the second tallest white oak tree in the state, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.

Jim Miller, a member of the Davidson Hunt Club, has noticed the tree for years and got the idea to nominate the tree with the forest service after reading an article in the News-Journal about another large tree.

“I always was fascinated by this tree,” Miller recently said.

The tree is on the T. Whitfield Davidson Foundation property, which accounts for 3,200 acres behind the Davidson Hunt Club building off of Davidson Road. The hunt club leases the property.

“I come out here almost every afternoon,” Miller said, noting that with the pandemic he has been able to socially distance by heading into the woods.

The old sprawling white oak is tucked back on the property among rows of planted pine trees, only accessible with a small utility vehicle.

The path to the tree, which is rocky at times, winds back through a thick wooded area before it gives way into a large meadow clearing with the white oak at its center. The tree easily stands out, as it is taller than any other tree in the area and much wider.

White oak trees have a “short stocky trunk with massive horizontal limbs,” according to the Arbor Day Foundation, a nonprofit conservation and education organization. “The wide spreading branches form an upright, broad-rounded crown. The bark is light ashy gray, scaly or shallow furrowed, variable in appearance, often broken into small, narrow, rectangular blocks and scales.”

According to the Forest Service’s registry, the trunk of the tree outside Diana has a circumference of 204 inches, and the oak is 83 feet tall. The crown spread of the tree’s canopy is measured at 116 feet. The registry’s index value is 316, just seven points shy of the first-place score.

“You probably couldn’t tell the difference in the tree,” Miller said as he compared the first- and second- place trees.

Miller was told in November that the tree ranked second in the state.

He put his deer stand just behind the tree in the clearing. The stand, obscured by the width of the tree, is hardly visible from the opposite side of the white oak.

“You hear the sounds of the forest and sometimes the hoot owls will start up,” Miller said. “Of course, there’s squirrels and coyotes out here — and then the deer and the hogs.”

The first-place white oak tree is not far away — in Texas terms. It grows in Morris County, almost directly north of the Harrison County tree. It measures 98 feet tall but smaller in circumference than the Harrison County tree at 193 inches around. The spread is noted at 128 feet.

The third- and fourth-largest trees are in Wood and Red River counties, respectively.

The Texas Big Tree Registry is put together by the Texas A&M Forest Service and recognizes the largest known tree of each species growing in the Lone Star State. Some of its trees are the largest of that species in the country.

According to the forest service, big trees are valuable in their environments compared to younger or smaller trees in ways such as carbon storage, water and air filtration.

There is a historical marker on the property for the site of the Davidson Homestead. The land was purchased by Isaiah Davidson and was the site of one of the first frame houses built in that area of the state in 1867, according to the marker.

Descendant Judge T. Whitfield Davidson inherited and owned the property until his death in 1974 at 97 years old.

He served as city attorney in Marshall, as a state senator and lieutenant governor of the state and ran for governor in 1924. When he ran for governor, he ran in staunch opposition to the Ku Klux Klan but lost the election. He was later appointed as a federal district judge by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Davidson also built the Josephine Davidson Memorial Chapel between Harleton and Gilmer in honor of his mother.

He later established the Davidson Foundation to care for the chapel.