The Missouri State Arboretum on the campus of Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville is a tree sanctuary formally designated in 1993, with more than 111 species and 792 recorded trees. Its landscape tradition reaches back to 1857, when Thomas Gaunt began planting trees that helped shape the campus’s identity, including the tree-lined Long Walk. Grounds keeper J. R. Brink further transformed the campus after 1915 by planting hundreds of trees each year. Although Dutch elm disease and bronze birch borer later devastated major parts of the canopy, cataloging and trail development begun in 1979 helped establish a more formal arboretum organized today around three named trails.