The Trigonia Elm, which grew in the small community of Trigonia where Blount, Monroe, and Loudon counties cornered, was declared on page 39 of the July 15, 1961, issue of The New Yorker to be the largest American elm in the United States and probably in the world. People in all three counties claimed the tree for their own county, but Carson Brewer placed it in Blount County in articles for the Knoxville News Sentinel. Brewer wrote that naturalists and foresters estimated the tree to be 400 to 500 years old, and in an August 13, 1961, article he said the American Forestry Association's register of big trees listed its girth at 24 feet seven inches and its spread at 147 feet. In 1979, Brewer referred to a slightly larger elm having been found in Kentucky. TVA cut the tree in 1980 after acquiring the land where it stood as part of purchases for the Tellico Dam Project, and lightning had struck it earlier and scarred it with mortal blows.