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QuickTake:
Before dawn on Wednesday, community partners gathered downtown to watch as a Christmas tree went up at Willamette and Broadway, ahead of the Holiday Night Out event on Friday.
Downtown Eugene’s holiday season started quietly at 6 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 3, with a handful of community members, coffee, donuts and a very large tree.
The group, along with some heavy machinery, was there to put up the second-annual Christmas tree in Kesey Square. The tradition began last year, coordinated by the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Eugene Inc.
The city will host a tree lighting at 6:30 p.m. Friday, organized by Downtown Eugene Merchants and chamber staff. But on Wednesday, before a creature was stirring, volunteers gathered at Broadway and Willamette Street to prepare for the main event.
With coffee and donuts in hand, they watched as a crew with the Eugene Water & Electric Board used a small crane to hoist a giant metal tree stand — welded last year by Lane Community College students — out of an idling truck and onto the ground.
Next came the tree itself. Workers tied a tether around the top and used the crane to lift it off a truck and lower it into the stand before tightening the bolts. Staff later braced the tree with support wires secured to two nearby buildings.
Lumber supplier Sierra Pacific Industries donated the tree, a grand fir about 30 feet tall and 24 years old, harvested from forestland in the Middle Fork area of Lane County.
Courtney Griesel, Oregon community relations manager for Sierra Pacific, said professional foresters and contractor RiverRidge Excavating and Logging helped load the tree onto a truck the day before Thanksgiving. It was transported from the company’s Highway 99 mill site to the square early Wednesday morning.
After the tree comes down in January, Sierra Pacific will repurpose it into 2×4 and 2×6 lumber, Griesel said. Grand fir wood is often used in papermaking and construction for framing and flooring.
Sierra Pacific Forest Engineer Matt Riggs, who was at the tree’s installation on Wednesday, said foresters selected this tree because of its uniformity and taper, contrasting from neighboring firs that had two tops or had unevenly distributed branches.
It’s uncommon to find firs suitable for Christmas trees in the woods because Sierra Pacific is growing them for timber, meaning they grow in tight proximity and ideally only have limbs in the top third to avoid knots, he said. This tree grew on a big stretch of grass considered a subpar growing ground for timber because the soil is wetter and more shallow, he added.
“That’s not what we try and go for, but it makes perfect Christmas trees,” Riggs said.
Once the tree was in place, an EWEB worker ascended in a bucket truck and began wrapping hundreds of feet of multicolored Christmas lights donated by the chamber, straightening branches as he went.
Eugene’s downtown didn’t have a Christmas tree tradition until last year, when there were enough community members who said, “‘You know what, this needs to happen,’” according to Katie Wilgus, the chamber’s downtown solutions strategist.
“It was a big scratching of the heads, because the city had never permitted a holiday tree downtown,” she said. “It took a lot of collaboration and willingness and coming to the table and that’s what we all are so joyful about, is that this enormous collaboration has worked.”
Friday’s tree lighting, which will feature Mayor Kaarin Knudson and the Oregon Duck, is part of downtown Eugene’s Holiday Night Out celebration, from 4:30 to 8 p.m.
The event will include a performance from the Churchill High School Choir at the Farmers Market Pavilion at 7 p.m.; an appearance of Santa and Mrs. Claus at People’s Bank; letters to Santa; snow and light shows at 5th Street Public Market; and the Downtown Eugene Holiday Competition. Downtown shops will be also be open late.
