The International Forest of Friendship is an arboretum

Arboretum

An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...

 and memorial forest beside Lake Warnock in Atchison, Kansas

Atchison, Kansas

Atchison is a city situated along the Missouri River in the eastern part of Atchison County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 11,021. It is the county seat and most populous city of Atchison County...

. It is a memorial to the men and women involved in aviation and space exploration, and open to the public daily.

The forest was started in 1976 by the city of Atchison and the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots. Fay Gillis Wells

Fay Gillis Wells

Fay Gillis Wells was a pioneer aviator, globe-trotting journalist and distinguished broadcaster. In 1929 she was the first woman pilot to bail out of an airplane to save her life and helped found the Ninety-Nines, the international organization of licensed women pilots...

 is credited as founder and original co-chairman. The forest contains trees representing all 50 American states and the 35 countries where honorees reside. Each tree has its own flag, and many have unique associations, including trees from George Washington

George Washington

George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

's Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon (plantation)

Mount Vernon, located near Alexandria, Virginia, was the plantation home of the first President of the United States, George Washington. The mansion is built of wood in neoclassical Georgian architectural style, and the estate is located on the banks of the Potomac River.Mount Vernon was designated...

, the Bicentennial American Spruce

Spruce

A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea , a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth. Spruces are large trees, from tall when mature, and can be distinguished by their whorled branches and conical...

, a tree from Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...

's grandfather's farm, a redbud from President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

's farm, and an American sycamore

American sycamore

Platanus occidentalis, also known as American Sycamore, American plane, Occidental plane, and Buttonwood, is one of the species of Platanus native to North America...

 grown from a seed taken to the moon by Command Module

Apollo Command/Service Module

The Command/Service Module was one of two spacecraft, along with the Lunar Module, used for the United States Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon. It was built for NASA by North American Aviation...

 pilot Stuart Roosa

Stuart Roosa

Stuart Allen Roosa was a NASA astronaut, who was the command module pilot for the Apollo 14 mission. The mission lasted from January 31 to February 9, 1971 and was the third mission to land astronauts on the Moon...

 on Apollo 14

Apollo 14

Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the American Apollo program, and the third to land on the Moon. It was the last of the "H missions", targeted landings with two-day stays on the Moon with two lunar EVAs, or moonwalks....

. The moon tree

Moon tree

Moon trees are trees grown from 500 seeds taken into orbit around the moon by Stuart Roosa during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. As the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission, and because he was a former smoke jumper, Roosa was contacted by Ed Cliff, who was the Chief of the Forest Service...

 is dedicated to seventeen American astronaut

Astronaut

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

s who lost their lives furthering space exploration.

A trail through the forest contains granite plaques with the names of over 1,200 aviation notables, including Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...

, Charles Lindbergh

Charles Lindbergh

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...

, Jeana Yeager

Jeana Yeager

Jeana Yeager is an aviator. She is most famous for co-piloting a non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world in the Rutan Voyager aircraft from 14 to 23 December 1986. The flight took 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds and covered 24,986 miles , more than doubling the old distance record set by...

, Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi was the sixth Prime Minister of India . He took office after his mother's assassination on 31 October 1984; he himself was assassinated on 21 May 1991. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India when he took office at the age of 40.Rajiv Gandhi was the elder son of Indira...

, the Wright Brothers

Wright brothers

The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur , were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903...

, Sally Ride

Sally Ride

Sally Kristen Ride is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut. Ride joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman—and then-youngest American, at 32—to enter space...

, Chuck Yeager

Chuck Yeager

Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager is a retired major general in the United States Air Force and noted test pilot. He was the first pilot to travel faster than sound...

, Beryl Markham

Beryl Markham

Beryl Markham was a British-born Kenyan aviatrix, adventurer, and racehorse trainer. During the pioneer days of aviation, she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west...

, General Jimmy Doolittle

Jimmy Doolittle

General James Harold "Jimmy" Doolittle, USAF was an American aviation pioneer. Doolittle served as a brigadier general, major general and lieutenant general in the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War...

, President George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

, General Colin Powell

Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...

, and Lt. Col. Eileen M. Collins.

External links

• International Forest of Friendship, includes a list of honorees