Demopolis in Bloom team builds 30-foot Christmas tree

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in downtown Demopolis. When much of the city gathers together for Thursday’s night’s lighting of Public Square and subsequent Christmas on the River festivities it will find a new feature in the form of a tree that sits atop what appears to be an enormous drum.

The entire structure stands some 30 feet tall and has been fashioned by the city’s horticulture team, the public works crew, Collins Communications and a handful of volunteers.

The structure sits over the park’s merry-go-round and features lights that will flash in sequence with the music that will be played from inside the drum.

The tree began to take root when Blevins saw one pictured in a catalogue.

“I don’t plan,” city horticulturist Barbara Blevins said. “If I see something I want to do, I jump in and go from there. I know what it is supposed to look like and I try to match that.”

The manufactured version of the tree sold for approximately $174,000.

“We duplicated something that was manufactured, but we built it from scratch,” John Scales said.

The Demopolis version of the tree consists of pieces from all over the city. The bass drum that stands at eight feet high is made of material typically used in stop signs. The door is one that was no longer being used by the police department. The fencing that forms the conical shape of the tree came from the old George Franks Field.

“All of our material has come from scratch,” Sheryl Cunningham said. “The trampoline pieces we had out back because several years ago we asked people to donate old trampolines because that’s what we build our greenhouses out of.”

The structure will remain up through Christmas.