Point of Beginning of the Public Land Surveys of Sixth Principal Meridian

The plaque's cast iron monument still stands on the bluff. It is a hollow obelisk six feet tall, eleven inches square at the base and about 600 pounds, its faces lettered 1854, 40° N. Lat., Nebraska and Kansas. Shipped upriver from St. Louis and held at St. Joseph by low water, it was set at noon on May 8, 1855, replacing an oak stake. In 1924 surveyor Leo M. Peterson found it toppled down the slope and reset it over an iron pipe. Surveyors restored the site in 1988 and held a work day there on May 8, 2025.

What the plaque says

Point of Beginning of the Public Land Surveys of the Sixth Principal Meridian The Kansas-Nebraska Act of May 30, 1854, created the territories of Nebraska and Kansas, which had to be surveyed before settlement could proceed. In Nov- ember 1854 Captain Thomas J. Lee of the U.S. Army Topographic Engineers determined the Fortieth De- gree of North Latitude along the Missouri River. On May 8, 1855, the cast iron monument on the bluff above was erected by Charles A. Manners to mark the beginning of the base line (Fortieth Parallel) forming the Nebraska-Kansas boundary. In 1855-56 Manners surveyed westward from the cast iron monument along the baseline 108 miles to establish the Initial Point of the Sixth Principal Merid- ian. The Initial Point controls the system of sections, townships, and ranges of the public land surveys in Nebraska, Kansas, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota. The original surveys of Nebraska were completed in 1883. All land transactions (patents, deeds, and ease- ments) within Nebraska are filed with the register of deeds of each county and reference the corners set during these surveys. Professional Surveyors Association of Nebraska Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Iowa and Sac & Fox Mission Museum — 11 mi
  The surviving part of an 1846 Presbyterian mission school near Highland, built largely with the tribes' own annuity money and returned to the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska in 2021. Closed during remodeling.
• Indian Cave State Park — 20 mi
  Wooded Missouri River bluffs in the old Nemaha Half-Breed Reservation, with carvings of animals cut into a sandstone shelter, the ghost town of St. Deroin and miles of trail.

More markers nearby

• Missouri River — 6.1 mi
• Lewis and Clark Camp Site: July 13, 1804 — 6.1 mi
• Nemaha River Falls — 15 mi
• First Oil Well — 19 mi