Conway treats trees with respect

CONWAY -- Long before Betty Smith wrote about a tree growing in Brooklyn or Joyce Kilmer swooned over trees lovelier than poems, there was Mary Beaty of Conway.

One day in 1887, according to city lore, Beaty loaded her shotgun, marched to the corner of Main and Fifth and pointedly told railroad workers there not to harm a single bough on the live oak that stood on one side of the intersection.

Today, that oak is home to a plaque dedicating it to Confederate general and former S.C. governor Wade Hampton, and the city is celebrating its 25th consecutive year as an official Tree City USA.

"It says the city values its trees," said Mark Derowitsch, public relations manager for the National Arbor Day Foundation, which awards Tree City designations each year. "It means the city recognizes the benefits of its trees."

In Conway, that recognition may be traced to Beaty, but it was codified in city ordinances in 1980 and updated in 1999 and 2007, said City Administrator Bill Graham.

Even before then, city officials took steps to protect Conway's urban forest. L.D. Magrath, Conway mayor from 1925 to 1934 and again in 1945 and 1946, insisted that trees get the right of way when streets were being paved. The legacy of his orders can still be seen in curbs that jut into some residential streets so that the live oaks they protect wouldn't be felled for the sake of pavement. At Seventh Avenue and Beaty Street, a live oak stands at the center of a mini-roundabout.

"Trees have the right of way in Conway," said Wanda Lilly, the city's arborist.

Conway's laws protect not only live oaks, but any tree with a four-inch diameter at breast height. That means that Southern favorites such as redbuds, dogwoods and crape myrtles have the same legal status as ancient and imposing live oaks.

Trees that are 30 inches in diameter are official landmarks.

At least 25 of the city's live oaks are individually named, as is the Wade Hampton Oak, Lilly said. Besides the oak beneath which Hampton gave a post-Civil War speech, there is the Hanging Oak, the Elevator Oak and others. The Mary Beaty Oak stands across Main Street from Hampton's. The most recent naming was three years ago when the live oak in the center of the mini-roundabout was dedicated to George Magrath, former Mayor Magrath's son, who for years anonymously gave money to the city to plant dogwoods along the public rights of way on Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth avenues.

Lilly has raised small live oaks from the seeds of the Hanging, Hampton and Elevator oaks that are now six-feet tall and can be used to replace others that might die.

Trees are not just a thing of beauty either, said Lilly and the Arbor Day Foundation's Derowitsch.

They take in airborne and groundwater pollutants, returning fresh air and cleaner water. They have a proven therapeutic effect on sick people and help them recover faster, Lilly said. Landscaping in low-income areas leads to lower crime, schoolgirls in a treed environment get better grades and there are fewer traffic accidents along properly-landscaped streets, she said.

One requirement for the Tree City USA designation is that a city must have personnel such as Lilly who are dedicated to tree preservation.

Her job is to care for all trees in Conway that are on public property, but she also answers numerous inquiries from residents, many of whom seek advice on caring for trees in their yards. She is also surveying a group of trees that was first mapped in 1971 to determine how many still stand and their conditions. Eventually, she aims to design a walking tour of the city's impressive and beautiful urban forest.

While being a Tree City is a matter of pride, it is not a unique designation. Other South Carolina cities such as Charleston, Greenville and Columbia also have long-standing Tree City histories. But Conway is alone on the Grand Strand for having the designation.

In Conway, the reverence of trees runs through generations like a good name.

"Conway is such a beautiful town and it's characterized by the trees," said George Magrath Jr., the grandson of the former mayor. "Trees set off homes, they set off streets, they set off towns."