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)

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In Tualatin lies the Principal Willamette Meridian line from which all of Oregon and Washington land surveys are measured.

On June 20 a small group of residents gathered in front of a spinning globe mounted to a tall chunk of metal sticking out of the ground near the corner of Southwest 65th Avenue and Nyberg Lane in Tualatin. By no coincidence, the Principal Willamette Meridian line monument aligns perfectly with the telephone poles on Southwest 65th Avenue. The poles are also visual markers that align with the meridian line.

The city erected the monument after the Tualatin Historical Society requested that Southwest 65th Avenue also carry the name of Meridian Road to reflect the street’s alignment with the historical line.

In 1851, U.S. surveyor Gen. John B. Preston drove a stake into the ground to designate the initial point where a base line and a meridian line intersected. This point is now known as the Willamette Stone and is located in the Sylvan community west of Portland.

And from this point, Preston established the Willamette Meridian which runs north to Canada and south to the California border. From that line, parallel lines were designated every 22 miles.

Across the country markers were placed in the ground and the basis for the land survey system upon which boundaries and coordinates are based was begun.

And ever since, county surveyors have perpetuated those markers. To this day, Elam said the Willamette Meridian line is perfect in measurement.

“The line was so important in the past,” said Tualatin Historical Society member Yvonne Addington. “We probably didn’t know how important it would be for the future.”

And while Tualatin’s monument will stand as a visual marker for the line, the rest — about 3,400 markers — are still for the most part unseen.

“It’s not just illegal to touch them (the land markers),” Elam said. “There’s no corner police standing there, but people need to realize that the markers are important for land description.”

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