Origins of Woodstock Shoe Tree are muddled

WOODSTOCK – On Dunham Road just east of Menge Road in rural Woodstock sits an unexpected sight with mysterious roots.

The Woodstock Shoe Tree is a black walnut tree. Its branches bear at least 100 discarded, decrepit flip-flops, boots and gym shoes. It sits opposite a multimillion-dollar gated property and is listed as a stop on RoadsideAmerica.com.

To get to the bottom of the mystery, one must go back to the 1970s.

“Emricson Park had a lot of runners,” said RB Thompson, a former Woodstock High School cross country running coach and longtime Woodstock resident. “Somewhere along the lines, shoes were laced together and hurled in jest up into the trees. I think that kind of started it. I did hear things later.”

Thompson said the tree was on one of the routes his cross country athletes ran, but he couldn’t confirm whether the runners started the tradition of throwing shoes in the tree because the coaches didn’t go out on the routes themselves.

“They did run out on Dunham and Menge and so forth, but that was more or less controlled by the boys themselves,” he said. “Our boys would frequently run 20 miles in a day.”

Accounts differ on the origins of the Woodstock oddity that has been described both as a work of art and an eyesore. No one at the Woodstock Public Library was aware of the true origins of the tree.

Woodstock Public Works Director Jeff Van Landuyt said that because the tree falls outside city limits, his department doesn’t have any jurisdiction over cleanup. But he does remember working with Carnehl Enterprises, a Marengo company, in the 1980s. The Carnehl family lived on Dunham Road not far from the tree.

“His kid was apparently tall and had pretty big shoes and started throwing them up there,” he said. “I think that’s the premise where it started.”

The six members of the Carnehl family previously said they noticed the shoe tree in 1985, when they moved in and added at least a dozen and a half pairs of shoes to the tree. They didn’t start the tradition, but they were happy to keep it going.

Former McHenry County Highway Department General Foreman Bill Meade claimed in a 1998 interview with the Northwest Herald that he started the tradition by tossing his footwear up in the branches in the late 1980s.

“I just got mad and threw my [work boots] up there because they were all full of paint,” he said at the time. “It’s something I shouldn’t have done at the time, but I did it. I was young and stupid then, I guess.”

Meade said that at the time, he never thought throwing shoes in the tree would become a tradition. With a laugh, he described it as “a true work of art, an original masterpiece.”

Shoe trees are famous in communities throughout the nation. In Saline County, Arkansas, a community is mourning after a judge recently ordered that a shoe tree be cut down, according to local media reports. Meanwhile in central Oregon, residents are confused after shoes have disappeared from their local oddity, The Associated Press reported. RoadsideAmerica.com lists a total of 46 shoe trees in the U.S., including the Woodstock Shoe Tree and the ill-fated Saline County tree.

Woodstock’s tree falls within McHenry County’s jurisdiction and likely won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Department officials have said they see the tradition as harmless, and they don’t remove shoes from the tree.

“We do maintain the area, so we mow out there. If shoes fall down, we pick them up,” assistant maintenance superintendent Beth Skowronski said. “But they don’t cause a hazard or an issue. It’s harmless. It’s kind of folklore, you could say.”