New Mexico

In 1868, U.S. Surveyor Ehud N. Darling surveyed the 37th parallel of latitude to establish the territorial boundary of Colorado and New Mexico, placing specially marked stones at intervals along the surveyed line from the northeast corner of New Mexico to a point 8192 feet west of what is now the Four Corners Monument. In 1903, U.S. surveyor Howard B. Carpenter resurveyed the 37th parallel along a technically more precise location and reported that this new survey line lay significantly north of the line Darling had established in 1868. A joint Resolution of Congress vetoed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 and a lawsuit filed in 1919 both failed to relocate the established state line as originally monumented by Darling, which had been accepted, recognized, and used by citizens and governments as the official state line.

New Mexico · United States