ELMS

ELMS. Stately trees that once graced much of the city. Elms planted and cared for by Joseph A. RHOMBERG formed the glorious but doomed "Cathedral of the Elms" along Rhomberg Avenue. Estimates of the number of elms once growing in Dubuque ranged from as few as 10,000 to as many as 80,000. In 1963 a special census counted 4,617 growing along the city's STREETS, many planted during the last quarter of the 19th Century.

The beginning of the end started in August 1961, when the first evidence of DUTCH ELM DISEASE was discovered in a tree at 75 Hill Street. The disease first reached the United States in 1930 in a load of elm burl delivered to the port of Baltimore from Holland.

A Dubuque official at first denied the presence of the disease, but as evidence accumulated a program to save the trees was launched. Spraying with DDT for other diseases had been started in 1958 along with trimming and destroying diseased branches. Although these practices were continued, the blight spread and the use of DDT ended after it was labeled a threat to the environment.

In 1964 the Park Department began using Bidrin, a pesticide advertised as a preventive for the disease. In use it was discovered that the chemical did no more than slow the disease. Other chemicals were also tried and discontinued. One idea never tried was the importation of French wasps that would eat the beetles causing the disease.

Dubuque's terrain proved a serious problem in containing Dutch elm disease. Trees on the hillsides and in the valleys could not be carefully monitored or removed. Infected trees provided breeding grounds for the beetles that spread the disease. Governmental policies were also a problem. As late as 1968 it was often not clear who was responsible, according to the city ordinance, for the disposal of dead trees.

When the Dutch elm disease reached its peak in 1968, 85 percent of Dubuque's trees were elms. The vast numbers of dying trees and the speed with which the disease spread soon made it apparent that the containment effort was futile. The battle to save the elms cost the citizens of Dubuque over $750,000. Today the city, in planting trees, avoids concentrating an area with one kind of tree to avoid a repeat of similar destruction. (Photo Courtesy: U.S. Forest Service and Jack H. Barger)