Perhaps a woodworker?

If the tree is 300 years, and even when the tree looks whole it is likely that the trunk is hollow, and the tree may not be worth the bother of trying to give it to a woodworker. If the trunk is not hollow some specialty lumber mill may be interested.

Should be folks with portable mills in the area. Give them a call and see what they say.

Dan

Don, there is a sawmill up US 67 between west alton mo and alton, il. They may be interested.

Do you use a chainsaw? Easiest thing to do is slice a few pancakes and make clocks or coasters. I have one I made of cottonwood even. A bunch of spruce coasters from a christmas a decade ago. Even used the router to make a couple cup holding coasters.

More of a home project than industrial.

look in the yellow pages under lumber mills... or call the local NON-bigboxstore lumber yard.. and ask for a referral ...

only a local professional ... with eyes on ... will be able to tell you if there is any 'value' in the wood ....

if nothing else.. if they take it down.. for free.. that might be near $1000 NOT out of your pocket for removal ....

ken

You know that the person who will want the wood is most likely NOT going to be the company who takes down the tree. Felling of a large, old tree that has been in decline for a long time can be a dangerous and tricky job. You'll need to hire that company (fully insured) and keep looking for someone who might be able to make use of the wood.

Additionally, if this tree is located in a residential setting, there would be few,if any, timbercutters who would have any inclination to bother with it - too much liability with regard to it dropping on structures(homes, fences, outbuildings, power lines, etc.), and the fact that far too many trees in residential setting harbor hidden 'hardware' - things like wire,nails, spikes, pipes, chains, plowshares, bicycles, car parts, etc. that wreak havoc on chainsaws(and their operators) and expensive sawmill blades.

There are cabinetmakers/woodworkers out there in partnership with portable mills and tree workers/arborists. Their availability in that place depends upon demand.

Dan

Okay. Wow. Thank you for all the responses. I haven't been on gardenweb in years and forgot how to check my posting. I will definitely call a few sawmills and see if anyone can help. I'm still looking for good pictures from when the tree was healthy as well so I can do a comparison shot. I just really don't want to pay to get it removed. I had got a bid for $2000 and that did not include ANY haul away. It was going to be $4000 with all the wood taken away. Seemed a little high to me, but who am I to judge.

I sort of figured that you didn't want to pay to have it removed. ;-)

Pin oak would not be the choice of woods for most woodworkers. I would use it as firewood.

Agreed, gandle.
I've seen a few pin oaks, growing as part of a dense, mixed hardwood forest that had a good clean bole and would yield several decent sawlogs, but most I've seen in residential settings will be or have been so low-branching that any butt log would be pretty short, and likely quite knotty - and likely afflicted with hardware.

In my experience, most regular saw mills don't want a residential tree due to hardware since they have large circular saw blades, and damaging a tooth or two is an expensive thing to fix. However, bandsaw mills have much less expensive blades. Often folks with bandsaw mills will be happy to either take the logs or do the sawing at your place and turn them into lumber.

DH worked at a regular saw mill in his younger years and now has a portable bandsaw mill. We are both woodturners and he often gets calls from neighbors or other turners about trees that they would like to have sawn into lumber for woodworking of various sorts, including turning blanks. Depending on Don's tree, there may well be some good wood in it so it's probably worth a phone call to see if once the tree has been taken down by someone qualified there will be interest in it as wood. The pin oaks I grew up with started branching above the second story windows, and poor lumber often makes great turning stock, though since it doesn't grow in this area much we haven't ever gotten a pin oak so I don't know for sure how well it turns. Other oaks are fine.

Here's a link to an article about woodturners salvaging an old elm on the other side of the state from you:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/state-and-regional/missouri/article_b880f39a-4840-5418-9139-4ac39f45929a.html

and below is a link to a St. Louis woodturning group.

Here is a link that might be useful: woodturners of st louis