Here’s North Carolina’s Tallest Christmas Tree

NORTH CAROLINA — The tallest Christmas tree in every state is likely between 30 and 75 feet tall, according to a new report. The folks at 24/7 Wall St. contacted organizations in every state, such as state chambers of commerce and tourism bureaus, to figure out where the tallest tree on public display is located in every state.

In North Carolina, that tree is 35 feet tall and is on display at the Biltmore House in Asheville, the report said. The tree is a Norway spruce.

Many of the tallest trees nationwide are, as you might have guessed, located at the state capitol buildings. Notable exceptions include the 72-foot behemoth sitting at Rockefeller Center in New York City and a 56-foot-tall artificial tree that sits on top of a Macy’s store in Atlanta.

“The lighting of the Christmas tree is one of the most festive events on the yearly calendar of American communities,” the authors wrote. “It is one of the few occasions that brings communities together and is a source of civic pride as well competition as to what town has the tallest or most dazzling tree.”
The report is not exactly scientific.

Many of the trees hadn’t been raised at the time of the report, so the authors used the best available information from 2017 for the list. Moreover, the country’s tallest “tree,” if you can call it that, isn’t a tree at all. It’s merely a display of lights carefully hung to resemble the shape of a tree, and could just as easily be the world’s largest traffic cone. The display is located at Monument Circle in Indianapolis and stands 242 feet tall.

That wasn’t the only questionable entry, either. The authors noted a few other non-traditional trees that you wouldn’t find anywhere else.

“Not all Christmas trees fit the Currier & Ives image of the season: In Hawaii, the biggest Christmas tree is a banyan tree displayed in Courthouse Square in Lahaina,” the authors wrote. “Maine’s largest tree is made of lobster traps.”Several states had trees that stand at least 100 feet tall. These included California (110 feet), Connecticut (100 feet), Florida, Idaho (162 feet), Indiana (242 feet), Minnesota (120 feet), Missouri (100 feet), Pennsylvania and Washington (185 feet). On the flip side, the tallest tree in three states — Wyoming, Virginia and South Dakota didn’t crack 30 feet and represented the country’s shortest trees.

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Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

Photo credit: John Lamparski/Getty Images