Spring2024 35 MAYBE THE WHORLS OF hormones adrift in the air are to blame. Or maybe it’s the sudden freedom away from home, or the sheer disorienting unfamiliarity of being at college — whatever the case, for many undergraduates, entering college also means joining that great human search for someone to hold. Since the late 1800s at Oregon State, there’s even been a tree dedicated to the cause. In 1901, a gray poplar just southeast of Community Hall, formerly known as Benton Hall, became known as the Trysting Tree because students found it a relatively private place for after-hours rendezvous. (Maybe too private, the Board of Regents decided in 1898, training two bright lights on its branches.“The tree seemed to have magical effects on the students, especially in the springtime,” the Daily Barometer, then the Co-Ed Barometer, reported in 1923.) The name stuck.And though the gray poplar that remains is not the original — it was cut down and replaced due to disease — the tree that still bears the title has watched over everything from romantic entanglements to marriage proposals. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that a campus with a landmark dedicated to student love has served as both a catalyst and a backdrop for the neverending drama of dating.Throughout Oregon State’s history, its places and practices have shaped and sparked countless love stories. This is a story about those stories. The customs, places and curious codes that have shaped campus romance. BY Katherine C umano ILLUSTRATIONS BY ZOHAR LAZAR ZOHAR LAZAR
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