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- The U.S. Capitol Christmas tree will stop at Wheeler Historic Farm in Murray.
- The 74-foot Sitka spruce from Alaska will be displayed Saturday from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
- Visitors can take photos, enjoy food trucks and learn about local Christmas tree options.
MURRAY — Utahns hoping to catch a glimpse of this year's U.S. Capitol Christmas tree won't need to travel very far, as a truck carrying the tree will stop for several hours at Wheeler Historic Farm in Murray Saturday afternoon before continuing the journey to the nation's capital.
The 74-foot Sitka spruce was harvested from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska last month and is scheduled to make a series of whistle stops in cities on the route to Washington, D.C., over the next week and a half. A truck and trailer totaling about 100 feet in length will visit Pocatello, Idaho, early Saturday before being on display at Wheeler Historic Farm from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
"We are honored that the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree will be making a stop at Wheeler Historic Farm on its journey to Washington, D.C.," Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson said in a statement. "Our community loves the holidays, and we're excited to join state, federal and community partners in celebration of this 60-year tradition that helps kick off the holiday season."
Callista Pearson, a spokeswoman for Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation, said the tree will cross the Utah-Idaho border at about 2:30 p.m. before heading south to Murray. Once it arrives, she said, people can take photos with the tree and learn from local representatives of the U.S. Forest Service and Department of Natural Resources about how to get their own live Christmas tree locally.
Food trucks will be available and the farms will offer wagon rides for the early part of the evening, she added.
The tradition of "The People's Tree" goes back decades, beginning in 1964 when U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack, D-Massachusetts, put a live tree on the Capitol lawn. Records from the Architect of the Capitol indicate that a Christmas tree was purchased as early as 1919, but a formal process was not established until 1964. Since 1970, the Forest Service has sourced a new tree each year from a different national forest to adorn the lawn.
Utah has contributed one tree to the Capitol lawn: a 75-foot Engelmann spruce from the Manti-LaSal National Forest in 1996, according to the Architect of the Capitol. The 2016 tree — an Engelmann spruce from Payette National Forest in Idaho — made a stop in Ogden on Nov. 15 of that year.
After stopping in Utah, this year's tree will make similar stops in Grand Junction, Colorado; Loveland, Colorado; Omaha, Nebraska; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Columbus, Ohio; and Hagerstown, Maryland before being delivered to Washington on Nov. 22.
