Prior to surveyors setting the Four Corners Monument, this boundless land was inhabited by the Ancestral Puebloans, followed by the Dine, Ute, and other Indigenous people. Over time, this land was claimed by Spain, taken in war by Mexico, ceded to the U.S. by treaty, and organized into territories. Mormon settlers declared the Provisional State of Deseret in 1849. The Congressional Compromise of 1850 created the territories of Utah and New Mexico, separating the free north from the slave South along the 37th parallel of latitude. U.S. Surveyor Howard B. Carpenter established the territorial line between Arizona and Utah in 1901, running from west to east and ending the survey at the Four Corners Monument. Today, the Four Corners Monument marks the point where the Navajo Nation, the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, and the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet in peace.