Monument helps put Willamette Meridian on the map

About 3,400 land markers are buried throughout Washington County

By Jennifer Clampet

The Times, Jul 18, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

Jennifer Clampet / The Times

A LINE IN THE EARTH – The Principal Willamette Meridian Line monument is a visible reminder to residents that the important land surveying line runs through the east side of the city. The line was established more than 150 years ago.

ADVERTISEMENTS

TUALATIN — GPS systems and satellites aside, the real reason people know where they’re going on their travels is because of a more than 100-year-old system of cedar stakes and chiseled stone land markers.

You might not care too much about latitude and longitude when it’s time to travel to the grocery store. But ask an astronaut, a land surveyor or even a lost tourist with a navigation system in his car and the lines mean the world.

It’s been described as an imaginary line system, one that envelops the world dividing areas into smaller and smaller grids.

But to land surveyors the lines, established by crews working under the 1850 U.S. Land Grant and Survey Act, are very much real. And in each area of the United States are thousands of buried land markers that designate base lines and meridian lines.

In Washington County alone, there are about 3,400 government land markers buried in the earth. Through a 1985 public land corner preservation act, agencies are encouraged to set up funds in order to preserve the markers, some made of cedar. Washington County charges $5 for each real property transaction to fund its preservation efforts.

County surveyor James Elam said the county only has about 560 more markers left to replace. The county replaces the markers with brass caps set in concrete.

That being said, most people pay little attention to the invisible line system. And so for only the second time in his career, Elam participated in a monument dedication for a visual marker of a meridian or base line.

The latitude lines are base lines. The longitude lines are known as meridian lines. In Greenwich, England, the Prime Meridian is one of the better-known lines.

1 | 2 Next Page >>