Big Oak Tree State Park protects champion bottomland giants

Big Oak Tree State Park is near East Prairie, and it helps explain the Bootheel before drainage ditches and row-crop fields changed the view. The park carries visitors back to the time when southeast Missouri was called “Swampeast Missouri,” with huge hickories, oaks, and wet ground.

The park protects a rare piece of bottomland forest. Bottomland forest is wet, low woods that grow near rivers and swamps. This kind of forest once covered much of the Mississippi Lowlands. MDC describes Big Oak Tree Natural Area as a remnant of those bottomland forests and swamps, standing out from the drained farm country around it.

The tree scale is the sticky part. The canopy averages about 120 feet tall, with several trees more than 140 feet tall. The original big oak that citizens fought to save stood for nearly 400 years before dying in 1952, and the park’s trees remain some of the largest in the state. Big Oak Tree is also listed as a National Natural Landmark.

For a visitor, this is one of Mississippi County’s best “see it with your own eyes” places. The boardwalk lets you enter wet forest without trampling it. Check State Parks before you go, because wet woods, trail conditions, mosquitoes, and boardwalk access can change with the season.