Kissing Oak - San Marcos, TX
N 29° 53.163 W 097° 56.175
14R E 602716 N 3306634
The oak tree between the old Boy Scout building and the TXSTU office building was where Sam Houston supposedly kisses the women of San Marcos/Hays County as a Thank You to them for helping his election campaign.
Waymark Code: WMZFJ2
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 11/03/2018
Views: 0
On July 24, 1857, then Senator Sam Houston was campaigning for election as Governor of Texas. He was on a route through 40-60 towns, San Marcos, being one of the stops. He was famous for long-winded speeches and apparently lived up to his reputation while along the banks of the San Marcos River that day! Before the speech started, a group of local women came forward to present him with a handmade Texas flag. After Houston had finished his campaigning, he expressed his gratitude for the flag by kissing the women who presented it.
The 1970 edition and the 2015 edition of Famous Trees of Texas and the 2012 edition of Living Witness: Historic Trees of Texas all have renditions of this campaign stop which resulted in Sam Houston kissing the young women who presented the flag to him that day. Houston ultimately lost the election that year but one of the legacies he left behind was this legend of his kisses under the oak trees along the riverside.
Which brings up the point of the oak trees. In 1857 where the campaign speech happened there were more than just one oak tree involved. Apparently the meeting was held in a grove of trees composed of Live oaks and Bur oaks of various ages. By 2012 there were only three trees left of the grove: 2 Live oaks and 1 sickly Bur oak. Experts from the Texas A&M Forest Service tested the ages of the trees and declared the largest Live oak and the Bur oak were old enough to have been present when Sam Houston spoke there. The Bur oak was subsequently taken out, leaving the two Live oaks as the only trees left, and one of them may be too young to have witnessed the kisses! Therefore, like other famous trees, the memory of what happened may remain in our collective memory even after the trees themselves have composted.
Please note that the Famous Trees of Texas books and other well meaning references, both in print and online, continue to give outdated instructions on how to find the Kissing Oak. The street names in San Marcos have changed since 1970. The Kissing Oak is found where University Drive bends about 400 feet after Moon Street and about 0.25 mile before it crosses over the San Marcos River. There is an old rock building (names the Sam Houston Lodge) and the trees remaining are between the rock building and the Texas State University office building that formerly was where a VFW lodge was.
An ad for a new housing development near San Marcos is calling itself Kissing Tree. This is not the kind of perpetuity normally associated with an event such as Sam Houston kissing a group of ladies after a political rally, but the promotion does continue the tale of the Kissing Tree and of Sam Houston's fame. It also credits the historic event as the inspiration for the neighborhood's name.
A retelling of the Kissing Tree origin: (
visit link)