Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument

A. W. Von Schmidt surveyed the California-Nevada boundary through 1872 and 1873 and set this cast iron column at its southern end, the first officially recognised oblique state line between the two. He was off. The corrected boundary runs three quarters of a mile north of here, so the column marks a border that no longer exists, standing well inside California to show where California was once thought to stop. Surveying error is rarely this easy to walk up to.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Needles — 12 mi
  Route 66's Colorado River gateway into California, anchored by El Garces, the Harvey House that Mojave hands built.
• Oatman — 16 mi
  A gold camp in the Black Mountains that outlived its mines, now run by wild burros — reached by the wildest switchbacks left on Route 66, and named for a history worth telling straight.
• Goffs — 24 mi
  A near-ghost on the pre-1931 Route 66 alignment, keeper of a 1914 desert schoolhouse and a WWII Army camp.

More markers nearby

• Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument — steps away
• The Garcés Expedition — 6.4 mi
• Camp Ibis — 10 mi
• Goodsprings Mining District 1856-1957 — 11 mi