Of note: The Valley Oak is the largest deciduous tree in North America.
In 1792, the English explorer George Vancouver noted on his expedition through the Santa Clara Valley, after seeing an expanse of Valley oaks: "For about twenty miles it could only be compared to a park which had originally been closely planted with the true old English oak; the underwood, that had probably attended its early growth, had the appearance of having been cleared away and left the stately lords of the forest in complete possession of the soil which was covered with luxuriant foliage."
In the year 1861, William Henry Brewer, the chief botanist for the first California Geological Survey wrote of the Valley oaks that he saw in Monterey County: "First I passed through a wild canyon, then over hills covered with oats, with here and there trees--oaks and pines. Some of these oaks were noble ones indeed. How I wish one stood in our yard at home....I measured one [Valley Oak] with wide spreading and cragged branches, that was 26.5 feet in circumference. Another had a diameter of over six feet, and the branches spread over 75 feet each way. I lay beneath its shade a little while before going on."
The Hooker Oak of Chico, California, was once the largest known Valley Oak. When it fell on May 1, 1977, it was nearly a hundred feet tall (30 m) and 29 feet (8.8 m) in circumference eight feet (2.4 m) from the ground.
The Tragedy Oak in Hanford, California, was at the same place where the historic Mussel Slough Tragedy gun fight happened in 1880. Six victims of the shooting were carried to the porch of the Brewer house, which was shaded by a tall oak tree. The tree became famously known as the Tragedy Oak. Sadly the tree fell down in a storm in 1995. A part of its trunk was donated by the Warmerdam family, that then owned the land that it grew on, to a nearby school called Pioneer Elementary School.