We'll show you our Castle Rock if you show us your Lone Tree

I like living in Castle Rock, Colorado, a community with rock solid identity. Not that our rock in any way resembles a castle. It more closely resembles a baked potato. But, Spud Rock lacks a certain respectability, and with Ship Rock already taken, someone along the way looked up and deemed our looming piece of granite a castle rock. Maybe it was a drunken patron leaving one of the bars along Perry Street long ago.

Regardless, we can proudly point out our community identity to all newcomers and visitors. We can touch it, climb it, picnic around it. We stand in front of it and take pictures. It shows up in countless advertisements, on official documents and in local calendars. Our kids in grade school can draw it. It is our very own shared talisman.

In contrast, no one who lives in neighboring Lone Tree seems to knows anything at all about the actual tree. I don’t see the tree decorated for the holidays. I don’t see a park around it or even a placard in front of it. Maybe the tree died or someone accidentally used it for firewood somewhere along the way. Was it a pine tree? Was it an oak? When asked, residents of Lone Tree seem stumped.

“Your town is called Lone Tree. Is there an actual namesake tree?”

This question is invariably met with a look of befuddlement and a quick shrug. Nobody knows. Or, more likely, nobody cares. I cannot say I blame Lone Tree citizens for spending little time pondering the matter. I am sure people who live in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, care little about who so enjoyed playing the game that they named an entire town after it.

I visited the City of Lone Tree website (cityoflonetree.com) in search of information about the mythical solitary tree and found nothing. The city site features a history section with nary a mention of the tree. The site offers answers to dozens of FAQ’s. People who live in Lone Tree apparently ask a lot of questions, but “where is our tree?” does not appear among them.

If you head west on Titan Road off Highway 85, then turn north on Roxborough Park Road en route to Chatfield State Park, you will, after the turn, immediately see on your right an eye-catching, solitary tree in an expansive field of grass. I imagine such a single tree might have been spied by one of the founders of Lone Tree, Colorado, but who now knows? Since the truth has been lost, I propose the tree near Chatfield State Park serve as a substitute lone tree for Lone Treeians suffering landmark envy, though the solitary tree lies in Littleton.

Littleton. Little town? Was it founded by someone named Little? Or, was the original settlement tiny and, if so, where is the small settlement that grew big but kept the name?