Arbor Day - Uptown Tree Naming Contest

Join the Cool Cities Committee in celebrating Arbor Day on April 24th, 2026, by naming five (5) of our beautiful new Uptown trees! Enter the naming contest by submitting your names in the form below! Submissions open until May 4th. 

What is Arbor Day?

Arbor Day is an annual holiday where communities celebrate the importance of trees with a variety of events such as tree plantings, educational opportunities and community tree care. Arbor Day was founded in Nebraska by pioneers moving in the Great Plains. The new residents quickly realized that the lack of trees caused erosion issues for agriculture, fuel, building materials and shade. J. Sterling Morton, a journalist and resident, saw the value in trees and advocated strongly for more tree plantings in the Community. Morton proposed the first Arbor day in 1872, which offered counties and individuals prizes for largest number of trees planted on that day. It's estimated over 1 million trees were planted in Nebraska on the first Arbor Day. 

Why are trees important?

Urban forests provide many environmental, economic and social benefits to the community by reducing stormwater runoff, improving water and air quality, providing shade and reducing summer temperatures, lowering utility costs and improving quality of life by beautifying the City. Urban forests also provide pockets of respite for wildlife. Native trees planted in urban areas can help provide critical food sources or habitat for insects and birds. 

Tree Naming Contest - Submission 

Complete the form below to submit your name submissions for five (5) different trees in Uptown! Below are some fun facts about each tree to get to know them.

Enter the contest by submitting your names for each tree in the form below!

Uptown Tree Planting 2025 

The City of Collinsville received a Illinois Community Canopy Planting Grant from Trees Forever to plant trees in our Uptown Area! This grant focuses on planting projects that diversity tree canopies in public areas such as streets, trails, schools, parks etc. This grant will helped fund the planting of over 60 trees in Uptown in Fall 2025!

This project furthers the City's Urban Forestry Management Plan by increasing our tree canopy and encouraging species diversification to bolster our urban forestry resilience. A healthy tree canopy provides a myriad of benefits including providing shade in our hot summers, improving air quality, stormwater management, increasing property values and improvements to mental and physical health. 

You can see all trees to be planted in the City's interactive Public Tree Inventory or with the Uptown Canopy Planting Map 2025 PDF. Trees selected with a note "Nov 8 2025" are new trees  planted as part of this grant. 

A huge thank you to all volunteers who helped make this tree planting in Uptown possible!