The County’s historical aerial photos of the Wawa site are consistent with trees that were planted there as saplings around the time that building went up (1975-ish), grew about 3’/year to a mature height of around 70′ in the mid-1990s.
Photos of the alleyway behind Wawa. Alleyway is the diagonal patch sloping upward to the right, in the center of the photo.
1976: No tree of any size appears planted in the alleyway behind the current Wawa. Note large tree across the street casts large shadow. Nothing like that appears in the alleyway. (Sun angle is about 9 o’clock, i.e., sun is shining from off to the left).
1990: Fifteen years later, you can see the shadow of a tree. Based on the shadow length for the Joe’s Pasta building, the maple trees in the alleyway are about 35′ tall at that time. (Sun angle is about 4:30 o’clock).
1997, 2011, 2017: Based on shadow lengths (relative to Joe’s Pasta building), trees reached mature height of 70′. (Sun angle is about 4:30 o’clock).
Older, grainier photos appear to show nothing but scrub. This is 1953 and 1960, respectively. Note that in the 1960 photo you can see the same shadow of the large tree across the street as in the 1976 photo, but nothing comparable in the alleyway behind the current Wawa.
