Qualla: Friendship Oak https://qualla.com/friendship-oak en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/friendship-oak-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Friendship Oak https://qualla.com/friendship-oak Friendship Oak: Introduction https://qualla.com/friendship-oak/ Photo credit Woodlot, CC BY-SA 3.0. The legend is simple: step beneath the branches of this tree and you will remain friends for life with everyone who shares its shade. It sounds like the kind of story printed on a souvenir postcard, except that Friendship Oak has been collecting believers since before the United States existed. Planted around 1487 -- five years before Columbus reached the New World -- this southern live oak has stood on what is now the Gulf Park campus of the University of Southern Mississippi in Long Beach, Mississippi, through more than five centuries of hurricanes, wars, and the steady accumulation of human devotion. Its crown spreads approximately 155 feet across, sheltering nearly 16,000 square feet of ground, and its lateral roots reach 150 feet from the trunk in every direction.

Read more: Friendship Oak on Qualla

Image: Woodlot | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/friendship-oak-wp/dj2s-friendship-oak-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Friendship Oak: Older Than the Nation https://qualla.com/friendship-oak/ Photo credit Woodlot, CC BY-SA 3.0. Friendship Oak dates to a time when the Pascagoula and Biloxi peoples were the only humans who knew this coastline. By the time French explorers arrived in the late 1600s, the tree was already two centuries old. When the campus was established as Gulf Park College for Women in 19...

Read more: Friendship Oak on Qualla

Image: Woodlot | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/friendship-oak-wp/dj2s-friendship-oak-older-than-the-nation.mp3 0:06 2 full Friendship Oak: Under the Canopy https://qualla.com/friendship-oak/ Photo credit Woodlot, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1950, Life magazine featured Gulf Park College with photographs of students attending classes in the open air beneath Friendship Oak. The image captured something essential about the tree: it is not merely old, it is used. Weddings have been held under its canopy for generatio...

Read more: Friendship Oak on Qualla

Image: Woodlot | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/friendship-oak-wp/dj2s-friendship-oak-under-the-canopy.mp3 0:06 3 full Friendship Oak: Weathering the Gulf https://qualla.com/friendship-oak/ Photo credit Woodlot, CC BY-SA 3.0. Living a few hundred yards from the Gulf of Mexico for five centuries means surviving what the Gulf throws at you. Hurricane winds have repeatedly stripped the Friendship Oak bare of leaves, and storm surges have pushed saltwater inland over its root system. Hurricane Camille in ...

Read more: Friendship Oak on Qualla

Image: Woodlot | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/friendship-oak-wp/dj2s-friendship-oak-weathering-the-gulf.mp3 0:06 4 full Friendship Oak: Still Growing https://qualla.com/friendship-oak/ Photo credit Woodlot, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 2024, the coast campus was approved for a sidewalk grant from the Mississippi Department of Transportation, creating a dedicated parking space and walkway to the tree along with a natural boundary designed to attract pollinators. It is a small, careful gesture -- the kind of a...

Read more: Friendship Oak on Qualla

Image: Woodlot | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/2/s/friendship-oak-wp/dj2s-friendship-oak-still-growing.mp3 0:06 5 full