Four Corners, Four Corners, where are you?
Travels with Dave and Elaine Violette
Four Corners National Monument - 8/24/2009
Author: David A. Violette, David@Violette.com
Keywords: Four Corners, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Navajo, Ute Mountain Utes
Description: A recent news story claimed that the Four Corners monument is not in the correct place. We visit the site.
Kerby tries the old "one paw in each state" trick at the Four Corners monument ( he almost made it).
The Four Corners Monument has always had a fascination for people, who know it to be the only place in the US where four states meet. The location was created in 1912 when Arizona became a state. What I did not know is that the monument also marks the boundary between two nations - the Navajo Nation and the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation.
Recent stories have claimed that the monument is in the wrong place - one says it should be 2.5 miles west, another says it should be about 1,800 ft east. However, regardless of the geodetic issues the monument where it sets is the official place where those four states meet, because "once a monument has been established and accepted by the parties involved (in the case of the Four Corners monument, the parties were the four territories and the U.S. Congress), the location of the physical monument is the ultimate authority in delineating a boundary."
The Four Corners Monument area celebrates the entities that meet at that point.
Looking at the Four Corners location from the southwest. It is the darkish band area about one-third up from the bottom.
Of course being the engineer that I am I had to make my own "measurement" of the monument's position using my GPS. Looks good to me!
The fun of Four Corners is that you can be at a point where four states meet and place your hands in two states and your feet in two others (I did not try this.) The location is out in high desert country, about 50 miles from Cortez CO and 50 miles from Shiprock NM. The Monument is in a park developed and administered by the Navajo Parks and Recreation Department. The official monument is set in a circular concrete area surrounded by flags of the states and nations that meet there, with facilities to help you take photos. Outside this central zone are native arts and crafts sheds that are so commonly seen along tourist-traveled routes on the Reservation.
But there has been some mystery and controversy recently about whether or not the four states actually meet at that point. From a story at MSNBC (click here for the story), "In an April 20 story about the location of the Four Corners marker, The Associated Press erroneously reported that the monument is 2.5 miles west of where it should be. Instead, according to Dave Doyle of the National Geodetic Survey, the monument marking the intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah is about 1,807 feet east of where it should have been placed in 1875. Doyle says the monument's location has been legally adopted by all the states as the official corner."
If you want the full details about this issue I suggest the article by the National Geodetic Survey "Why the Four Corners Monument is in Exactly the Right Place" (click here for the story). But let me give you the short version. It is sort of a question of "what is is."
In 1863 Congress established the north-south division between Arizona and New Mexico Territories to be the 32nd meridian west of the Washington Meridian. The Washington Meridian, which had been in use since 1850, was defined as bisecting the dome of the old Naval Observatory, situated at a longitude of 77 degrees 03 minutes (rounded values) West. The boundaries of eleven western states were determined based on the Washington Meridian, not the Greenwich Meridian. It was in 1912 that the US adopted the Greenwich Meridian as the basis for measurements.This would put the line at 109° 03' based on the Greenwich Meridian. And it was apparently the 3-minutes of arc difference that those who made the claim that the monument was 2.5 miles off had used. As reported in the citation last mentioned,
"In [a] letter of November 1, 1875, Robbins [the surveyor charged with surveying the boundary between Arizona and New Mexico] included the following explanation:
It seems to have been the general impression that the line was the 109 degrees of longitude west of Greenwich. Such is not the case, as the law makes it 32 degrees of longitude west from Washington, which corresponds to 109 degrees 02 minutes 59.25 seconds west from Greenwich, and which places the line a small fraction less than three miles farther west than would have been the case if it had been run as the 109 degrees of longitude."
The National Geodetic Survey has made more precise measurements using modern techniques and equipment and currently estimate that the monument should have been set approximately 1,800 to the east. Some uncertainties about technical details of geodetic reference systems used make determining the exact value impossible.
But remember, regardless where the monument SHOULD have been placed, the actual location of the monument is the legal boundary for those four states.