Indiana’s initial point for the Public Land System, at the intersection of the Base Line and the Second Principal Meridian, was established on September 1, 1805 by U.S. Deputy Surveyor Ebenezer Buckingham, Jr. The base line was run due east from a point on the southerly line at or near the westerly corner of the Vincennes Tract surveyed by Thomas Freeman in 1803, and the Second Principal Meridian was established 12 miles east of the southerly corner of Freeman’s survey. Their intersection formed the initial point from which the major portion of Indiana’s public lands are described and have their beginning. A small limestone marked on top was set in the latter part of the 19th century, about 1879 to 1886, to replace a wood post and perpetuate that point. The Second Principal Meridian was established to be in the geographic center of Indiana, with 15 ranges of townships west to the state’s southwesterly corner and 15 ranges east to part of the First Principal Meridian north of the Greenville Treaty of 1795. The First Principal Meridian, established by Israel Ludlow in 1795, marks the boundary between Ohio and Indiana. Indiana Historical Landmarks, Inc., was organized after a January 12, 1965 meeting in Paoli by members of the Indiana Society of Professional Land Surveyors, the Indiana County Surveyors Association, and the Orange County Pivot Point Association, and was incorporated on March 17, 1965. The organization sought to emphasize the importance of the rectangular system of U.S. public land surveys, memorialize founding forefathers, Indiana Indians and their tribes, U.S. deputy land surveyors, early prominent county surveyors, and contributors to the project. An 18 acre tract was surveyed and purchased, an access road was built, and on July 22, 1968 a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Forest Service provided for continued improvements, a miniature state of Indiana around the initial point, and maintenance and supervision, after which title to the site was conveyed to the U.S. Forest Service. The project was dedicated on October 14, 1973. Original copper plaques at the initial Pivot Point Park were later desecrated and destroyed by vandals during the summer of 1977, and a reproduction memorial was placed at this location by consent of the Orange County Board of Commissioners on November 7, 1977 and dedicated on September 10, 1978.