I haven't seen many of them, but what I saw were pleasant. Not spectacular, but certainly worthwhile. Frank Schmidt has a selection for better fall color. You could check to see if they would get you one in. Otherwise wait till fall color season to pick one out. Arktrees Here is a link that might be useful: Native Flame® American Hornbeam

Metasequoia! It may be more bald cypress shaped than you were looking but if you limb it up it will resemble a shade tree.

Sorry.........I lost track of my post and failed to thank everyone for their suggestions! I had an arborist look at the tree shortly after I posted and he agreed that it was most likely wilt. I pruned all the dead branches out of the tree and gave it one more year. Truth is, I was busy with other projects and really didn't want to tackle replacing the tree. It's now a year later and it's condition has worsened. Lots of suckers, and few leaves are on the tips of some branches and the rest looks dead. I'm taking it out next week! mdvaden........I have a Smoke Tree in the back yard that I've pruned into a tree. It's one of my favorites and I love the many colors it shows thru the seasons. Anyone know if Japanese Snowbell is resistant to the wilt?

Bboy, I also frequent another website through the UBC Botanical Garden Forums. Someone there who seemed to be very familiar with both verticillium wilt and pseudomona described a fast-acting verticillium wilt that really seemed to be the symptoms I had. He also enclosed pictures of some of his losses, which looked just like mine, sans the blackening. I attempted to take a sample of my branch to a Master Gardener at the local Home Depot yesterday, but of course I had been misinformed and there was no master gardener there. Either way, the tree is definitely dead and I dug it up yesterday evening. Gardengal, thanks for the suggestions. What's your opinion of say, flowering crabapples?