Legislative Route 1 Sycamore Allee

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The Legislative Route 1 Sycamore Allee is a row of trees planted along Legislative Route 1, about a mile north and south of Halifax, in Halifax and Reed, Dauphin County. The Department of Forests and Waters planted it in 1922.

Why it's listed

It was listed in the National Register in 2007 under Criterion C, with consideration B, and with local significance in landscape architecture. Its period of significance is 1922, the year the allee was planted.

Physical character

It is a two-part, discontiguous site of Oriental Plane trees spaced 60 feet apart across 33.2 acres. The southern segment was last paved in 1981 and the northern segment in 1995, when some trees were also replaced; the road was resurfaced with a Superpave wearing course in 2003.

Historical context

The State Highway Department, created in 1903, gained a mandate for roadside beautification in 1907, the same year Halifax was incorporated as a borough; the 1911 Sproul Highway Act then designated this road as Legislative Route 1. By 1913 a Shade Tree Commission had oversight of all the trees, and between 1917 and 1919 another 1,000 were planted along the streets, ahead of the 1922 allee.