LEWISTON — The city’s 40-foot Christmas tree arrived Tuesday morning at Dufresne Plaza  on Lisbon Street after a four-mile journey from Grove Street.

City arborist Steve Murch said the towering spruce caught his attention last year while he was plowing snow, so he made note of it. He contacted the property owners who were willing to donate it to the city for its holiday display.

Public works crews and others cut the tree, which was hoisted by a crane onto a flatbed truck for transport.

“It’ll be all ready for the holiday festival Dec. 3,” Murch said. “We’ll make sure to have it ready then.”

Murch said he always urges people to contact city officials if they think they have a good candidate for a tree, and this year there were responses from city residents as well as others in Minot, Sabattus and Portland.

“We’re looking for a tree 30 to 40 feet,” Murch said. “It’s got to be near the road because we don’t want to have to lift it over power lines, and we need the room to work and get three big trucks in there, a crane, bucket truck and a trailer truck . . . When we drove down Sabattus Street, we were averaging just 10 miles per hour or slower. So, having it be close by is a big help.”

The city will try to keep the tree up until mid-January, around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but poor weather is always a concern, Murch said. There have been years when people insisted the tree stay up a little longer and then weather prevented public works from taking it down until much later.

“If we get a good window, we definitely want it to stay up through New Year’s of that next week, but we’ll generally start waiting for good weather after that and just doing it,” Murch said.

The Christmas tree and a Menorah will both be lit at Dufresne Plaza at 4:30 p.m. Dec. 3.

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