
The marker at the exact "Four Corners" point. August 2005.

The Four Corners Monument rest area, maintained on
Navajo Nation lands.

A child straddling all four states, on the monument as it looked in the 1960s.
The 'Four Corners Monument' marks the
quadripoint in the
Navajo Nation and Ute Mountain Tribal Lands in the
Southwest United States where the states of
Arizona,
Colorado,
New Mexico and
Utah meet.
It is located on the
Colorado Plateau west of
U.S. Highway 160, 40 miles southwest of
Cortez, Colorado. It is centered at .
[ Four Corners PID AD9256 ] The point was originally declared by congress to be 37°N, 109°W, but an early surveying error misplaced the location. The US Supreme Court later ruled that the current location had become so standard that it should be officially recognized as the actual boundary between the four states.
Not only is the point a
perpendicular corner intersection, it is the only point in the
United States shared by four states, leading to their being called the
Four Corners region. A
Ute Indian reservation abuts the point in Colorado. The
landmark is run by the Navajo Nation
Parks and
Recreation Department and is a popular
tourist attraction, despite its isolated and somewhat remote location. In order to view (and take a photograph at) this monument, a $3 per person fee must be paid to enter the premises in which the marker lies.
Around the monument, local Navajo and Ute artisans sell
souvenirs and
food. The position of the point was initially surveyed by E. N. Darling in
1868, and marked with a sandstone marker.
[ A Book About A Thousand Things, , George, Stimpson, Harper & Brothers, 1946, ] The first permanent marker at the point was placed in
1912. It was replaced in
1992 with a
granite marker embedded with a large circular
bronze disk around the point, surrounded by smaller, appropriately located state
seals and flags.
See also
★
New Mexico State Road 597
External links
★
Additional information about the Four Corners Monument
★
NGS Survey Information
★
Geocaching Recovery Logs
References