Oregon’s largest living thing, the Sitka spruce tree in southern Clatsop County, was severely damaged by the weekend storm that struck the Oregon coast.

Known as the Seaside Spruce or the Klootchy Creek Giant, the tree had attracted 100,000 visitors a year.

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Forester Paul Ries of the Oregon Department of Forestry said the 700-year-old spruce had been damaged a year ago and appears to have snapped about 75 feet from the ground, about as he and his colleagues expected, and had lost much of its foliage.

"The tree will now die," he said. "It's a sad event, but not unexpected. It's part of the natural cycle of the tree."

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The tree split apart early Sunday.

“This tree was an Oregon icon,” Ries said.

It co-shared the title of the country’s largest Sitka spruce with another one in Washington’s Olympic National Park.

At seventeen feet in diameter and 206 feet tall, the tree was not only the largest of its kind, but was also the first tree designated as an Oregon Heritage Tree.

The December 2006 windstorm opened up an old lightning scar on the tree which ran from 40 to 80 feet above the ground. At that time, officials from Clatsop County, the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon Heritage Tree Committee determined that the tree was too weakened by time and nature to save, but public interest in the tree and its unique history convinced officials to let the tree stand and let nature take its course.

Clatsop County Parks officials erected a fence a safe distance away from the tree, and installed interpretive materials telling the story of the dying tree.

The next chapter of the story of this tree is waiting to unfold and be told – perhaps allowing the old giant to give life as a “nurse log” to new Sitkas.