Kane County Spruce: Chicago Selects 50-Foot Tree for 2026 Holiday Display

Chicago officials selected a 50-foot Norway spruce from Kane County to serve as the city's official Christmas tree for 2026. The tree came from the property of the Clark family in Campton Hills, Illinois. City crews cut down the spruce on Monday morning. Workers transported the tree to Millennium Park for assembly and decoration.

The tree will be illuminated on Friday, November 20. This date marks the city's 113th Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The display will remain up through early January.

Chicago's holiday tree tradition dates back to 1913. A 35-foot spruce stood in Grant Park for the first lighting. Mayor Carter H. Harrison Jr. presided over the event. The Municipal Christmas Festival Association organized the festival. Charles R. Hutchinson, then president of the Art Institute of Chicago, led the group. Artists, including sculptor Lorado Taft, helped with the effort.

Mayor Harrison pushed a button to light 600 multicolored bulbs and a star at the top. Approximately 100,000 people attended the 1913 ceremony. The tree stood in Grant Park for more than 40 years.

In 1956, the single tree was replaced by a conical stack of smaller trees. The first stack stood 70 feet tall. It featured about 4,400 lights and 2,000 ornaments. The structure was mounted at Michigan Avenue and Congress Parkway in Grant Park.

The city moved the tree to Daley Plaza in 1966. It is now known as Civic Center Plaza. The Chicago Picasso sculpture was unveiled in August 1967, a year after the first move. The tree and ceremony moved to State Street and Wacker Drive for one year in 1982. They returned to Daley Plaza in 1983.

Mayor Richard M. Daley asked the Department of Streets and Sanitation in 1991 to find a single large tree that could be transplanted into a city park after the holidays. The largest tree available was 35 feet tall. Officials deemed it too short for Daley Plaza. The city continued using a stack of multiple trees. By 2008, the structure contained 113 individual trees.

A 2008 report by CBS News Chicago Investigator Pam Zekman found the city paid more than $300,000 for workers to build, decorate, and dismantle the compound tree over six weeks. Following the report, the city switched back to a single tree for the first time in over 50 years. The Weivoda family of Palos Heights donated the first single tree in that new era.

In 2015, the city moved the tree and lighting ceremony to Millennium Park. The current location is at Michigan Avenue and Washington Street. This site is two blocks north of the original 1913 festival location.