DEADWOOD - There's an empty spot along the road today where 54 feet of beauty used to stand.

But what's missing - or at least most of it - will soon fill the state Capitol Rotunda in Pierre with the green Ghost of Christmas Present.

And it'll be all decked out for the season.

State foresters, a private construction crew and state Department of Transportation employees carefully cut, trimmed and hauled away a near-perfect Black Hills spruce tree that had stood along the street in southeast Deadwood for an estimated 45 years.

Next stop? The South Dakota Capitol and its annual display of decorated Christmas trees.

Property owner Jim Sternhagen looks forward soon to seeing the familiar tree in that unfamiliar venue. But he watched and photographed the process of removal Thursday with a sense of loss.

"To tell you the truth, I was going to leave before they cut it down. It's such a beautiful tree," he said. "We're sad to see it go."

But it paid the price of progress in a business move. Sternhagen and his wife, Lana, plan to move their Stress Relief Massage business from cramped quarters in downtown Deadwood to a new building on land where the tree stood. They're also planning a small business complex at the same location.

"We were trying as best we could to build around the tree, but it wasn't working," Sternhagen said.

In a fortunate coincidence, state forester Brian Garbisch of Lead already had his eye on the tree and its insecure location. Its future could have been threatened anyway by DOT plans to rebuild and widen U.S. Highway 85 passing Sternhagen's land.

The spruce looked like a perfect Christmas tree in an imperfect location, state forest-health forester Jessica Halverson of Rapid City said.

"We kind of keep our eyes open year-round for trees like that, that might be in a situation where something is going to be built," Halverson said. "That happened to be the case here."

The foresters look for trees to place in the Christmas display at the South Dakota Capitol. And the spruce is set to be the centerpiece decoration of the Capitol Rotunda.

The plan Thursday was to cut the tree at 9 a.m. But the crane that was needed to help with that work was delayed, thanks to a roof problem at the Wal-Mart store in Spearfish.

By 1 p.m., the crane was in place near the tree, and Garbisch climbed the spruce to attach the rope from the crane. The crane operator held the tree as Hot Springs forester Dave Hettick cut it. Then the crane laid it over so the foresters could trim about 14 feet off the bottom and cut some branches so it wasn't so wide in transport.

That made it easier to position and tie down on a flatbed truck for the trip to Pierre. The tree probably will be trimmed further to help get it in through the Capitol, a move likely to take place early next week, Halverson said.

She's certain it will be a stunning part of the display.

"It has a really nice, conical shape, and it's pretty full, which you can attribute to growing out in the open," she said. "It'll be the center tree. And it'll be very nice."

Nice for some, not so for others. Barbara Morson, an employee at Chubby Chipmunk Hand-Dipped Chocolate, located across the street from Sternhagen's land, loved to gaze upon the tree. Morson said the view will never quite be the same, and she wishes a less-visible tree had been chosen.

"We're very sad, all of us. It will be missed," she said. "It's not like there's nothing else out there to look at. But it was kind of a focal point of the view. It was the perfect tree."

Sternhagen understands those emotions. But he also suspects that construction work around the tree might have killed it. Halverson said that was a very real possibility.

"In situations like that, a lot of times, roots get damaged, and they end up dying in a year or two," she said.

The local landmark is already dead as a living spruce. But soon, it will have another life, however short, as a statuesque symbol of the Christmas season.

There are worse ways for a tree to go.

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com