Lawn Mower Tree – Fort Wilderness

Jack Spence is on a leave of absence until 2014. This is a reprint of a blog he wrote several years ago. This blog originally ran in 2007 and was accurate at the time of publication.

For those of you not familiar with the “Lawnmower Tree” it’s an interesting oddity located at the Fort Wilderness Campground. It seems that years before Walt Disney World opened, someone leaned an old, push-style lawnmower against a tree and left it there. Over the years, the tree slowly grew around it. When the campground was being developed, the Disney Imagineers noticed this lawnmower half encased in a tree, thought it was interesting, and eventually put up a small sign to highlight this curiosity.

I’ve been visiting Walt Disney World since 1972 and on each visit have watched the slow disappearance of the lawnmower as the bark continues to in case it. Currently, only a very small part of the blades are still visible at the base of the tree. But I have sad news”¦ For reason I do not know, most of the upper half of the tree has been cut off. Now, only about twelve feet of the trunk remains. Since the tree is now dead, the lawnmower’s slow disappearance has been halted.