One of the towering live oaks that has stood watch over the Jackson County Courthouse lawn for more than a century and a half has been removed after arborists determined the tree had declined to the point that it posed a public safety risk.

Jackson County commissioners voted 4–1 to move forward with a plan that could remove a historic live oak at the courthouse square and replace it with a dual tribute honoring both Lady Justice and local horticulturist Esop Bellamy, a freed slave by way of South Carolina who planted the courthouse trees in the late 1800s.