Although this mammoth pecan tree is not the largest in the world, nor in Texas, it has the distinction of once having yielded the largest pecan nuts in the world. Robert L. Ripley cited the Jumbo Hollis in his “Believe It or Not” column as requiring the fewest nuts to weigh a pound. When other native pecans averaged 70-80 nuts per pound, Jumbo’s averaged 33.
The name Jumbo Hollis is derived from the tree’s unusually large fruit and from Thomas I. Hollis, the first recorded owner of the tree. Hollis was an early settler and storekeeper in the Bend community, near San Saba. At the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Jumbo Hollis pecans won a bronze medal for being the largest displayed.
In the early 1900’s much of its wood was sent throughout the South to be “budded” (grafted) to other pecan trees.
The tree’s record year was 1919, when it produced 1,015 pounds of nuts. So popular were the fruits of this tree that buyers then paid as much as a dollar a pound for them.