Moon Trees and the Moon Tree Bridge
On December 29, 2021, the Harrison Avenue bridge between Queen City and Westwood avenues in South Fairmount received the honorary, secondary name of Moon Tree Bridge.
The name is in memory of a Sycamore moon tree planted in the community that was descended from seeds carried on the Apollo 14 mission to the moon. Cincinnati City Council approved the naming ordinance on December 1, 2021.
The second-generation Sycamore moon tree was planted in South Fairmount in 1992 by an avid local astronomer named Dennis Smith Sr. who owned a local paper products company. The tree was removed to make way for the Lick Run Greenway, but it was cloned by Lagergren Nursery in Hamilton, Ohio.
MSD planted three of the cloned baby moon trees on the south side of the Lick Run Greenway pond just east of the Harrison Avenue bridge (and close to the location of the original moon tree).
Watch our baby Sycamore moon trees grow!
What's a Moon Tree?
In 1971, NASA astronaut Stuart Roosa carried about 500 tree seeds into space as part of the Apollo 14 mission to the moon. Once the mission returned, the seeds were germinated by the U.S. Forest Service and planted across the country. Trees grown from these seeds were known as "moon trees." Later, cuttings from many of the original moon trees were planted and distributed as second-generation moon trees.