Slashed Inspiration Oak Gets New Leaf on Life : Landmark: A 500-year-old tree is recovering from spiteful damage, thanks to a forester’s skilled grafts.

Spring is bringing new growth to a 500-year-old live oak tree that drew wide attention when someone tried to kill it with a chain saw.

New leaves cover the huge limbs in the second spring since someone cut a gash about 4 inches wide all the way around the oak’s trunk, which measures 29 feet in circumference.

New tissue was grafted on to bridge the gap in the bark so that sap could flow.

But the healing--supported by thousands of tourists and T-shirt sales--has been slow for the tree, which is 65 feet tall with limbs spreading 150 feet across.

“I would say there is a chance the tree will survive,” said Auburn University forester Bill Goff, who examined the tree about three months ago. Goff said its recovery could take years longer.

“For it to be green now is really exciting,” said Stan Revis of Crestview, Fla., the forester who performed the graft.

Baldwin County condemned the site, alongside scenic U.S. Highway 98, to establish Inspiration Oak Park. The road is a major route to beaches in coastal Alabama.

Stan Foote, a retired Navy captain who lives in nearby Fairhope, helped organize supporters of the tree to raise funds for its protection and to nurse it back to health.

Foote said parts of younger trees were grafted onto the big oak’s bark. These form bridges over the wound, passing water and nutrients pass from big tree’s roots to its leaves.

“Sap is flowing through the little trees,” Foote said.

The old tree is irrigated, partly enclosed in a greenhouse and protected by a chain-link fence.

Foote said the park has had more than 60,000 visitors since the tree was cut, “some from as far away as Russia.”

“We’ve been receiving enough donations to keep the project going,” Foote said. A souvenir store at the park sells “Save the Oak” T-shirts. A log cabin also is on the property, and Foote hopes it can be restored and used as a museum.

The tree was vandalized in October, 1990, amid a dispute over the site. Although it was private property, it had long been a favorite spot for picnics.

The owner at the time, Mildred Casey, had been fighting county condemnation of the site. She refused to comment on the chain-saw incident.

By the time the county had completed the proceedings, she had sold the tree and 27 acres to Kenneth and Patricia Norman of Mobile.

The Normans went to court, claiming that the county’s offer of $18,000 for the nearly three acres was too low. A trial is to open May 4 in Baldwin County Probate Court.

Foote said his group was not involved in the court fight. “Our only interest is in saving the tree --whoever owns it.”

Another landmark tree damaged by vandalism also is recovering, but as a shadow of its former self.

In Austin, Tex., the Treaty Oak --50 feet tall with a 120-foot limb span--was poisoned with the herbicide Velpar in 1989. The tree’s name came from the legend that Stephen F. Austin and some Indians signed a treaty under its boughs.

After enormous efforts to save the Treaty Oak, much of it died. About three-fourths of the limbs and branches were removed last year.

A man was convicted of poisoning the Treaty Oak, and was sentenced in 1991 to nine years in prison.