By NPT Staff - March 29th, 2021 2:15am
Garrity's Alabama Battery stands sentinel overlooking Moccasin Bend, the Tennessee River, and Chattanooga from Lookout Mountain/NPS
Garrity's Alabama Battery stands sentinel overlooking Moccasin Bend, the Tennessee River, and Chattanooga from Lookout Mountain/NPS
How do you value a century-old tree? That's a tough one when you factor in not just the board feet, but the value it provided to Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in Georgia and Tennessee. It's a site that preserves and interprets key battles that helped cripple the Confederacy, and one that a 53-year-old man viewed as his private lumber yard.
According to the National Park Service, James Darren Scott, who claimed both Bryant, Alabama and Trenton, Georgia, as home, drove off the Old Wauhatchie Pike and onto Lookout Mountain, where he cut down more than a dozen trees, including several old-growth oaks.
His incursion into the park was noticed last September, when a ranger spotted the path that led off Old Wauhatchie Pike and into the woods.
"Upon further investigation, the ranger noted over a dozen cut trees, including several old-growth oaks. One large diameter cut tree section was removed by dragging it from the forest, down the road, to a parking lot," a park release said. "The ranger installed several live-monitored cellular game cameras and was able to capture a man revisiting the site a few days later. The ranger interviewed nearby neighbors, family members and acquaintances in Georgia, and visited a sawmill specializing in old-growth white oak trees in Alabama. The suspect’s personal information, as well as information on the vehicle used to commit the theft, were obtained."
Eventually, investigators were able to track down Scott; several people who knew him "identified him from the game camera photos and confirmed the make/model of his vehicle. With this corroborating information, the ranger successfully obtained an arrest warrant, and Scott was taken into custody without incident. Prior to trial, Scott accepted a plea to serve 11 months and 29 days in the Silverdale Correctional Complex in Hamilton County."
The damage assessment remains ongoing.
"It is difficult to put a price tag on trees that are over 100 years old and to offer more than just board feet value to national park visitors," the park release said. "A specialist with the U.S. Department of the Interior estimates Scott’s combined theft and damage to the park is approximately $60,000."