Broad Street Trees project and Athens Tree Commission collection

The Athens Tree Commission was created by the Athens city government in September 1980. The Commission launched a Founders Tree Trust to fund the planting of trees. Among the trees funded by the Trust in its early years were two of the 18 planted in College Square; these trees were dedicated November 12, 1981, not long after the Square was built. In these early years of the Tree Commission, however, the Founders Trust was principally engaged in two projects: Tree Babies, so named because donors were encouraged to name a child to which a tree would be dedicated (a complete list of the trees, donors, and dedicatees is found here); and Broad Street Trees. This second project emerged after the Trust designated West Broad Street, both east and west of its intersection with Alps Road-Hawthorne Avenue, as the site of a major planting program. Again, donors could dedicate the trees, but they were not required to honor a child. The Broad trees thus were thus dedicated to various prominent Athenians such as Alonzo Church, Clark Marion, and Edwin Inglis Smith, Jr. They were also dedicated to institutions, businesses, or sets of people, such as the Heyward Allen Motor Company honoring its customers. Many of the materials in this collection, including the slides, pertain to a presentation given by Mary Anne Hodgson, as documented in her notes.