Buttonwillow: Named for a Sacred Tree

On the flat western margin of the southern San Joaquin Valley, one tree stood visible for miles in every direction. The Yokuts people used it as a gathering place and landmark on the open plain. The tree was a buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis, and it had marked the landscape for centuries.

When the cattle company Miller and Lux set up its headquarters and store here around eighteen eighty-five, the tree was already a well-known landmark. The town that grew up around the spot took the tree's common name. Buttonwillow was the name given when the community formed in eighteen ninety-five, later recognized as California Historical Landmark Number Four Hundred and Ninety-Two.

The tree still stands today, ancient and unhurried, while Interstate Five roars past.