Oviedo dedicates Liberty Tree ahead of America’s 250th anniversary

Oviedo city leaders marked the run-up to America’s 250th anniversary with a ceremonial Liberty Tree dedication Thursday at City Hall on Alexandria Boulevard. The city described the tree as a hickory, and the ceremony ended with a ribbon cutting after a presentation of colors, a flag retirement ceremony and a 21-gun salute by American Legion Post 243.

Mayor Megan Sladek read a proclamation during the event, putting the city’s seal on a celebration built around public ritual rather than a routine landscaping project. Seminole County Commissioner Bob Dallari served as keynote speaker, giving the dedication a county-level presence and tying the moment to a broader civic calendar that will stretch through the nation’s semiquincentennial year.

The Liberty Tree symbol carries Revolutionary-era weight. Colonists used liberty trees as gathering places to protest British rule and organize resistance, and the National Constitution Center says each of the 13 colonies had its own Liberty Tree. The Boston Liberty Tree later became associated with Stamp Act protests in 1765 and the planning that fed into the Boston Tea Party. The American Revolution began in 1775, and the Treaty of Paris on Sept. 3, 1783, formally recognized U.S. independence.

Dallari’s appearance added a familiar local face to the ceremony. Seminole County’s official biography says he lives in Oviedo and served on the Oviedo City Council before his election to the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners. His presence underscored how the event was meant to reach beyond the city lawn and into the county’s shared civic identity.

The dedication also placed Oviedo alongside larger national efforts to build momentum for the 250th anniversary. The National Constitution Center and the National Archives are already promoting founding-history programming, and Oviedo’s tree now gives the city a visible marker to anchor its own observance. For residents, the event was less about pageantry for its own sake than a public signal that city hall intends to keep the anniversary in view as 2026 approaches.