Remembering the Tree on Route 20

For decades, anyone driving near the Indiana Dunes along Highway 20 would pass beneath the great American Elm that stood in the tiny town of Furnessville, Indiana - its limbs at one point stretching across three lanes of road. I read it made its way to the Guinness Book of World Records for this, but I haven't verified.  It was one of those quiet landmarks you didn’t plan to notice but always did — a living sign that you were almost home or near your destination, a mental bookmark.

In the 1980s, when this elm was over 100 years old, there was talk of removing the tree.  The railroad had been spraying chemicals to kill vegetation along the tracks. But this was a beloved tree! So the community rallied to save it, the charge being led by Ralph Ayres, a local political science teacher at Chesterton High School (a nearby town) and State Representative. Their efforts involved tying ribbons around the tree, phone calls and media outreach.

They succeeded. The tree was saved. And yet, over time, the tree’s health began to fail. Utility crews trimmed its branches again and again, and the roadwork that skirted its roots took a steady toll. By Fall 2025, the tree was gone. Some knew right away...but for a while, not everyone realized it. Some thought it was still there or thought a nearby tree was the same one, just changed by the season a bit. With social media, word spread. Some were dismayed to learn it was gone, while others immediately recognized that their favorite tree was missing.

Around that same time, I had just begun offering prints of The Last Light of the Coaling Tower, a pastel celebrating another local landmark in nearby Michigan City. As people connected with that piece and shared their own reflections of the Coaling Tower, I realized how much these places mean to the community. When I learned that the elm along Route 20 had finally been taken down, I knew it was time to paint it — not as a loss, but as a tribute.

I painted The Tree on Route 20 on clay-coated Aquabord, building up transparent watercolor washes and textured dry-brush details to echo the grain of its bark and the shimmer of wet pavement after rain. Later, I reimagined the image as a vintage-style South Shore Line poster — a nod both to the elm’s strength and to the regional travel art that has long celebrated life along Lake Michigan.

It has been gratifying to create a work which resonates with my community. Collectors across Northwest Indiana, throughout the U.S., and even as far as Spain have connected with it — proof that a simple roadside tree can speak to something universal about belonging, change, and memory.

The Tree on Route 20 reminds me that the places we love most don't just become art only after they disappear. But for the ones that are gone, sharing them keeps them with us a little longer.