Point of the Beginning Historic Marker Driving north of White Cloud, Kansas on Highway K-7, two and a half miles to the Nebraska State Line, you will find a Nebraska Historic Marker titled "Point of Beginning of the Public Land Surveys of the Sixth Principal Meridian" at the side of the road. It gives a short summary of the placing of a Cast Iron Marker on the bluff nearby. To find the 40th Parallel Marker, leave your vehicle by the historic marker and walk 80 yards north along the road where you will find a wooden footbridge crossing a ditch into the woods to a narrow, steep trail which leads up to the top of bluff and a short obelisk which is the monument to the starting point for surveying the 40th Parallel. The cast iron monument is just under 7' tall, weighs about 600 pounds and the four sides read 1854, Kansas, 40° N. Lat, and Nebraska. It was cast in St. Louis, Missouri and erected on May 8, 1855. The monument eventually slid away, but was restored to this spot in 1924. The Sixth Principal Meridian Initial Point near Mahaska, Kansas was established 108 miles west of this monument in 1856 and was the initial point use to locate all land surveys in territories of Kansas & Nebraska. Today that area includes all of Kansas & Nebraska much of Colorado & Wyoming, and a small portion of South Dakota. There is a guest register near the monument and an information station with the history of the Cast Iron Monument, the system of land surveys and the development of the area which became Kansas and Nebraska. The trail up the bluff is pretty steep and the walk is probably risky when the ground is wet, but it was dry today, there is a railing to hold on to and anyone in average condition can do it.
40th Parallel Marker
Copyright 2024 by Keith Stokes |
