The Year Ohio Supplied the White House Christmas Tree
In 1967, the White House Christmas tree for the family of President Lyndon B. Johnson came from Portage County.
The White House Christmas Tree has been a seasonal fixture of the president’s home in Washington, D.C. since the very first White House Christmas Tree was decorated for the grandchildren of Ohio-born president Benjamin Harrison in 1889.
History came full circle in 1967 when an Ohio-grown Christmas tree was selected to make its way to America’s capital that December during the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.
“A 20-foot blue spruce growing on the Portage County farm of Howard M. Cowan near here has been selected as the official Christmas Tree for President Johnson and his family this year,” East Liverpool’s The Evening Review reported from an AP News bulletin in its October 19, 1967, edition.
The article went on to state that the 176-member Ohio Christmas Tree Growers Association won the right to supply the White House Christmas tree in a competition conducted the previous year by the national growers association.
According to the White House Historical Association, it was not until 1966 that a competition to provide the White House Christmas Tree was put into place. To have a shot at taking top honors, tree growers had to first win their regional or state competitions before qualifying to compete at the national level.
Ohio Christmas Tree Growers Association president Roy R. Pierce learned that the Ohio tree had been selected by way of a phone call from the White House’s social secretary.
“I was told to have the tree at the White House on Dec. 10, the day after Lynda Bird Johnson is married,” Pierce said at the time.
Photos in the collection of the Ohio History Connection show the blue spruce being hoisted by a crane onto a green flatbed truck owned by the Davey Tree Expert Co. of Kent, Ohio.
According to White House records, the tree’s decorations that year included tinsel, silver stars, round mirrors, soldiers and snowmen along with Santa Claus cookies, gingerbread and seedpods.
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