State Boundary Monument (Utah, Idaho and Wyoming)

The longitude the panel gives, 34 degrees west of Washington, is the meridian Congress named for Wyoming's western line when it made the territory in 1868. It was reckoned from the old Naval Observatory under an 1850 act that made Washington the nation's meridian for astronomical purposes, and it falls about 111 degrees 3 minutes west of Greenwich, a couple of miles off the round 111th. Congress repealed the Washington meridian on August 22, 1912, and no state line moved: a border follows the monuments surveyors actually set, which is why Richards's correction counted.

What the plaque says

State Boundary Monument (Utah, Idaho and Wyoming) The state boundaries of Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming share one corner approximately 7.3 miles southwest from where you're standing. Two corners were surveyed and marked in the 1870's. U.S. Astronomer and Surveyor Daniel G. Major and a party of 11 men surveyed the Idaho-Utah boundary during the summer of 1871. Using transits, chronometers, a sextant and steel measuring chains, Major projected a line northerly from Evanston to a point near the Bear River where a series of celestial observations were performed. A specified distance was measured westerly to the intersection of the 42nd Parallel of North Latitude with the 34th Degree of Longitude (west of Washington, D.C.), the place for the "Initial Point". The point was marked by a "glazed white earthen bottle" deposited beneath a set pine post and witnessed by inscribed boulders. Three years later in 1874 while surveying the western boundary of Wyoming, U.S. Astronomer and Surveyor A.V. Richards found the "Major Monument" to be approximately 0.7 mile too far east, thereby creating a new point for the corner common to Idaho and Utah on the Wyoming boundary. Later surveys marked this point that became the accepted corner we recognize today. A coordinated effort by local and government surveying organizations recently relocated the historic corner sites established more than a century ago. The original survey records were instrumental in relocating these historic sites.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fossil Butte National Monument — 20 mi
  The floor of a 52-million-year-old lake, packed with whole fish, the oldest complete bats and the only complete freshwater stingrays.
• Bear Lake — 21 mi
  The Caribbean of the Rockies — a turquoise lake straddling the Utah-Idaho border
• Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 21 mi
  The Bear River crosses this marsh twice: once in a canal into Bear Lake, and once in another canal on its way back out.
• National Oregon/California Trail Center — 24 mi
  Emigrants came down off Big Hill and camped in the clover here. Brigham Young renamed the town; the trail center brings the camp back in costume.

More markers nearby

• Oregon Trail Memorial (Cokeville) — steps away
• Old Oregon Trail (Cokeville) — 0.6 mi
• Cokeville — 0.6 mi
• Tri State Survey Monument — 7.3 mi