aerial view of CWRU and University Circle

History’s John Grabowski provides expertise on the story of a historic English oak tree being replanted at Rockefeller Pond in University Circle

Jesse Owens Olympic oak tree planted at Rockefeller Pond

ideastream: John Grabowski, the Krieger Mueller Associate Professor of Applied History, provided his expertise in a story about a historic English oak tree being replanted at Rockefeller Pond in University Circle. At the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin, each gold medalist received a tree from the host country. Eighty-six years later, the only surviving Jesse Owens tree at Rhodes High School is dying. To honor Owens’ accomplishments, horticulturalists cloned an exact replica of that tree—and it was recently planted.