Downpour Uproots History

White House Elm Still Stands on $20 Bill

For the most visible symbol of the damage wrought by the Big Downpour of '06, look no farther than the back of a $20 bill.

See that lovely tree bracketing the right side of the White House, its leafy tendrils appearing to reach into the bedrooms of the first family?

It's not there anymore.

The storms that drenched the area this week toppled a stately American elm that had flanked the president's home since the Roosevelt administration -- that would be the Teddy Roosevelt administration. The tree, believed to be the same one on the twenty, was planted between 1902 and 1906, according to the National Park Service.

The elm that fell Sunday night was sick and old (American elms usually live about 85 years), said Bill Line of the National Park Service, which is responsible for the White House grounds. Efforts to save the tree by pruning it in recent years only delayed the inevitable, he said. Fortunately, it fell away from the building, so no one was hurt and nothing besides the tree was damaged.

Line didn't know what disease the tree had, but it clearly had some junk in its trunk, judging by the hollowed-out pieces that lay stacked on a truck bed yesterday outside the Executive Mansion. Its root ball, a gnarly dirt clot as big as a boulder, stood beside a backhoe. There was yellow tape around the site, as if it were a crime scene.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which produces the nation's currency, couldn't say for sure whether the late tree was the same one immortalized on the $20. The White House shown on the bill was an artistic composite based on photos of the building, said Claudia Dickens, a bureau spokeswoman.

The note's designer, the now-retired V. Jack Ruther, isn't exactly sure himself. The photos he worked from to produce the bill's 1998 redesign were taken over many decades and he no longer has them, he said. As a general matter, the engraving isn't photo-realistic. The grand fountain in front of the White House, for example, was removed from his final model ("I thought it was cool but someone in charge didn't"), and such distracting features as the security huts on the roof were never included.

That raises a philosophical question: If a tree falls at the White House and it's not the one on the $20 bill, would the news media still do stories about it?

Ruther offers an obvious answer: "My suggestion is to walk in front of the White House, stand by the gate and look at the bill. If the tree that's down looks like the one on the bill, I think it's safe to say it's the same tree."

And it most certainly appears to be. If you stand directly in front of the White House, at the approximate distance depicted on the bill, it's clear that the tree occupied the spot you'd expect by looking at the portrait. What's more, another huge elm stands to the left of the building, exactly as shown on the currency. Clearly, the two trees were bookends, giving the White House -- and the engraving on the twenty -- a nice arboreal symmetry.

Now, with one twin gone, the whole thing looks out of whack, as if a tooth had been knocked out of a perfect set of choppers.

The Park Service's Line says the tree will be replaced but that it will be years before its successor is as grand.

As for the remains of the fallen, no calls for souvenirs or raw material for dining room tables, please. The Park Service isn't selling. It plans to mulch the remains and spread them around the grounds.