'Treaty Oak Park'

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JESSIE BALL DUPONT PARK
Located on Prudential Drive, just blocks from "Friendship Fountain". Treaty Oak Park, as it's popularly known, is the park that surrounds "Treaty Oak". A magnificent specimen of "Quercus Virginiana", or Live Oak. Treaty Oak is over two centuries old and its trunk is over 25 feet in circumference. Treaty Oak is 70 foot tall and is also known as "Jacksonville's Favorite Oak"

In 1964 the Alfred I. duPont Foundation donated the land that the park is situated on, to the City Of Jacksonville, to be used " only for a public park, one of the purposes of which is to preserve the ancient oak commonly known as the Treaty Oak... for the benefit and enjoyment of the general public".

Treaty Oak was given it's popular name by a journalist who was intent on saving it from developers. Even though it was not true the reporter wrote a newspaper story that claimed a treaty had been signed by indians and early settlers, beneath the trees bountiful limbs.