Tree experts said none would survive replanting. Eight other trees will be replanted. Among them is a Japanese zelkova for Martin Luther King Jr. and southern magnolia for former first lady Pat Nixon. Other trees will have to be cut down, but they're not among the memorial group. Just cutting down a tree has generated multiple calls.
People walk by or jog through.
They've watched the landscape grow around them. If a bulldozer came through my yard, I'd be mad, too. About 920 trees dot the verdant lawns of the Capitol. Taggart's oak is one of 99 memorial trees to first ladies, soldiers, members of Congress and other notable persons and events. Taggart, who was also a Wyandotte County prosecutor was born in 1867, just six years after Kansas became a state, and died in 1938.