Chestnuts
There was a time when the American Chestnut was the very heart of our forests. Wild life of many kinds depended on its nuts, which often fell in such abundance as to carpet the floor of the forest. Rural folk depended on the nuts too (as did their livestock), for they were tasty and nutritious. And the American chestnut provided timber unrivalled in quality. Straight-grained and strong, easy to work and rot resistant, chestnut lumber went into everything from barn beams to furniture.
That time is gone. This tree, once the dominant species over much of our Eastern forests, was brought down by a disease. It was not a native disease but an exotic one, an accidentally imported fungus to which our trees had no resistance. From its point of introduction in New York City around the turn of the century, the Asian chestnut blight moved outward at a remarkable pace; fifty years later, all that remained of the species on which so much richness of life depended were millions of acres of dead but still standing stems. www.munic.state.ct.us/burlington/chestnuttree.htm
TL;DR
The American chestnut was once the heart of our forests. Wildlife and people depended on its abundant nuts. The wood was top-notch - strong, easy to work, and rot-resistant. Then a foreign fungus wiped it out. Sad.