A shoe tree, not to be confused with the shoe-preservation device of the same name, is a tree (or, occasionally, a powerline pole or other wooden object) that has been festooned with old shoes. Shoe trees are generally located alongside a major local thoroughfare, and may have a theme (such as high-heeled shoes). There are currently at least seventy-six such shoe trees in the United States, and an undetermined number elsewhere.
A cottonwood tree in Middlegate, Nevada, about 100 miles east of Reno, said to be the largest shoe tree in the world, was cut down by vandals late December 2010.
During the summer of 2010, a well-known shoe tree located just outside of Nordman, Idaho burned to the ground.
A shoe tree in Eureka Springs AR was recently cut down across from a KOA, where it was believed that a group of teenagers went into the campground, stole everyone's shoes and started their own tree. This tree was a landmark in the little town.
Read more about this topic: Shoe Tossing
Famous quotes containing the words shoe and/or tree:
“Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed.”
—Eugene Field (1850–1895)
“A tree is made to live in peace in the color of day and in friendship with the sun, the wind and the rain. Its roots plunge in the fat fermentation of the soil, sucking in its elemental humors, its fortifying juices. Trees always seem lost in a great tranquil dream. The dark rising sap makes them groan in the warm afternoons. A tree is a living being that knows the course of the clouds and presses the storms because it is full of birds’ nests.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)