The Christmas Tree Mystery

Who decorated the big pine along a remote stretch of Montana highway?

- BY Charlotte McDonald-Gibson FROM THE TIMES

The mountain road was slick with ice, and the long-haul trucker’s wife was too worried about him to hang up the phone.

So as German Segura guided his 18-wheeler through the treacherous aftermath of a December storm, he sought to lighten the mood.

What he said next to his wife, Elsa Segura, on that 4,000-mile round trip from Texas to Canada back in 2009, laid the foundations for a festive mystery and a beloved annual tradition.

For the past 16 winters, motorists traveling on a remote stretch of Interstate 90 through the Native American Crow Reservation in Montana have noticed a lone pine tree sticking up from the strip of grass between the northbound and southbound roads.

It stands out because it is decorated for Christmas. “Some people thought that it was the Native Americans that were doing it,” says Carl Stark, who lives in nearby Sheridan, Wyoming. “I talked to other people that said it was a memorial for somebody that died. So it was a big mystery.”

The explanation comes back to German, 71, who grew up in Mexico, fascinated by the American West. “I was dreaming that I would be a part of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and a Lone Ranger chasing buffalo,” he says.

After moving to America 46 years ago for a job with a trucking business, he was delighted to be assigned the Texas-Calgary route, which took him through the landscapes of his childhood dreams several times a month.