The Mingo Oak was a white oak in Mingo County West Virginia. Recognized for its age and size in 1931, the Mingo Oak was the oldest and largest living white oak tree in the world until its death in 1938. The tree reached a height of over 200 feet, its crown measured 130 feet in diameter and 60 feet in height. The tree's trunk measured 9 feet 10 inches and the circumference of its base measured 30 feet 9 inches. Estimates place the Mingo Oak's seeding between 1354 and 1361 AD. By the spring of 1938, the Mingo Oak failed to produce leaves, and on May of that year, West Virginia state forester D. B. Griffin announced the tree's death. The prevailing theory is that the tree died from the release of poisonous gases and sulfur fumes from a burning spoil tip in nearby Trace Gap.
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