BUFORD - What is probably Wyoming's best known and toughest tree received some special attention Friday along Interstate 80 near here.

Known as the "Lone Tree," the aged limber pine was sprayed with the pesticide permethrin by a Laramie company to protect it from mountain pine beetles.

The Lone Tree has been a landmark of the area since the transcontinental railroad was built near the tree 140 years ago. Legend has it that locomotive operators stopped to water the tree as they passed.

In 1901 the railroad route was moved to the south, but in the 1920s the Lincoln Highway was built along the original railroad route near the tree. The 1952 edition of the Wyoming Writers' Guide says "The Old Pine Tree" "is possibly the most-photographed object in Wyoming."

Appearing to grow from the large Sherman granite boulder at its base, the tree has endured the cold, fierce winds of winter in its fully exposed, flat site for hundreds of years, most likely.

Georgia Gayle and Steven Turner, who live in a house near Buford and commute past the tree to their business in Laramie each day, recently hired Firewise Forest Management of Laramie to spray the trees on their Buford property. While driving home three days ago, Gayle suggested that the Lone Tree should be sprayed also.

Gayle called the Wyoming Department of Transportation and other agencies and received approval for the spraying. Four WYDOT personnel were on hand Friday for the treatment, which took only a couple of minutes in a stiff wind.

Franz Lani and Adrian Martinez of Firewise said the tree was somewhat vulnerable, despite its substantial separation from any other tree, because the wind might enable the beetles to reach it. Martinez said he recently observed a number of beetle-killed limber pines west of Tie Siding, south of Laramie.

Lani said he hoped his company's efforts at Lone Pine would raise public awareness of the bark beetle epidemic which has affected much of the northern forests in Colorado and is now moving into Wyoming.