Des Moines Historical Quilt - Big Tree Inn
Marion Case Cunningham, eldest daughter of Des Moines pioneers Rollin A.
Case, Jr. and Marion Wilcox Case, wife of former Des Moines city councilman
Jack Cunningham, and lifelong Des Moines resident, served on the first Board
of Directors for the then-named Des Moines-Zenith Historical Society and was a volunteer
dispatcher for the Des Moines Fire Department. Marion made this square
depicting the Big Tree Inn.
The Big Tree Inn
Located on the southwest corner of S. 200th Street and Des Moines Way S. (now Des Moines Memorial Drive), the Big Tree Inn was made from two sections of a 2,000-year-old redwood tree that was twenty feet in diameter. Originally constructed for an international exposition in San Francisco in 1915, it was moved to the Des Moines site in the early 1920s. It was a popular chicken restaurant for some time, but when Pacific Highway South (State Route 99) became the main road, it was moved to a site near 192nd Street and Pacific Highway South and later burned.
—paraphrased from One Hundred Years of the “Waterland” Community: A History of Des Moines, Washington
