Initial Point

The point was fixed on April 19, 1867, by Peter Bell, Cartee's brother-in-law, from observations of the stars, on top of a small volcanic butte about eight miles south of Kuna. Every township and section across nearly 54 million acres of Idaho is counted from it. What marks it is modest: a brass cap about the size of a jar lid on the summit, where a viewing platform went up in 1962. The cap has been spray-painted, shot at and stolen. The Bureau of Land Management held a celebration for the point's history in Boise in May 2026.

What the plaque says

Initial Point All Idaho land surveys refer to a beginning point --"Initial Point"-- 16 miles directly south of here. When he began surveying Idaho in 1867, Lafayette Cartee, first surveyor general of Idaho Territory, established the initial point on a volcanic hill visible for many miles. Everywhere in Idaho, surveyors depend upon this essential point in establishing land boundaries. The city of Meridian is named for the Boise Meridian--the surveyors' north-south line which runs through Initial Point. 193 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• World Center for Birds of Prey — 9.1 mi
  The hilltop where the peregrine falcon was bred back from DDT, and where condors for the Grand Canyon country still hatch.
• Basque Block — 9.5 mi
  A merchant's 1864 brick house became the boardinghouse where herders from the Basque Country found beds, meals and their own language.
• Idaho State Capitol — 9.6 mi
  Walls hauled from the prison quarry, heat pumped from 3,000 feet down, and its newest rooms built underground.
• Old Idaho Penitentiary — 11 mi
  A territorial prison that ran for 101 years on conditions that barely changed, and closed the year its prisoners burned it.

More markers nearby

• Northwest Nazarene University — 7.8 mi
• The Ward Massacre — 12 mi
• The College of Idaho — 15 mi
• Beaver Dick's Ferry — 15 mi