You Know That Pecan Tree on Preston and Armstrong? Yeah, It’s Very Old.

A Friend of Unfair Park directs our attention this a.m. to KERA’s Arts + Culture blog, which features a short film from Rob Tranchin, who writes, produces and directs docs for station. The subject of his short film Million Dollar Monarch is, no kidding, a tree — specifically, the familiar pecan at Preston Road and Armstrong Parkway that becomes the drive-by attraction at Christmastime. Turns out, that tree’s danged near as old as Dallas itself: Says Tranchin in the doc, it dates back to at least 1865, when Joseph Cole was working in his cornfield and noticed the tree, which, back then, was “no bigger around than a pencil,” so Cole protected it. Fascinating. –Robert Wilonsky