Giant Oak Park, illuminated since the park district took ownership of the property in 1971, is home to the most famous tree in Peoria. The oak, located on the West Bluff near the Main Street hill and not far from Bradley University, is also known as “The Sentinel of the Bluff.”

It was there when the street was known as High Wine Street because the mansions were inhabited by whiskey barons in the late 1800s.

It was mentioned in 1750s surveys by European settlers, before the United States of America came to exist.

Before that, it is difficult to determine what the tree might have seen.

Until the day the tree falls and its rings are counted, no one can state a definitive age.

Even the plaques in Giant Oak Park hedge their bets. One engraving mentions the oak being proclaimed a tricentennial tree in 1991. Higher on the same plaque, however, it says the tree first took root in 1499.

Some people, including Tim Varvil - forestry foreman for the Peoria Park District crews that maintain the tree - speculate the tree already might have stood when explorer Christopher Columbus landed in the New World in 1492.