The Cast Iron Monument

The Cast Iron Monument. . , This 5x6 hundred pound obelisk shaped iron monument was cast in St. Louis, MO, in 1854 and was placed at this location one hundred feet above the road on May 8, 1855 by Charles Manners. The location was determined from astronomical observations by Capt. Thomas J. Lee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Nov. 17, 1854. A temporary 7 inch square oak post was established at this point by John P. Johnson, Nov. 17, 1854. The hollow 1" thick cast iron shaft is 6' tall with a flange base of 16" x 16". Directly above this flange is the shaft 11" by 11" at the base and tapers to 7" x 7" at the top. The letters at 1¼ high. The word "Nebraska" is on the north side, "Kansas" on the south side, "1854" on the east side and "40 N Late" on the west side. The stones partially buried in the concrete triangles are the original 1854 witness monuments set by Johnson and are set to the compass cardinal points North, South, East and West are spaced 10' from the monument., Errors by John P. Johnson in the original survey in 1854 resulted in Mr. Manners having to resurvey the base line to a point 108 miles west (near Mahaska, Kansas) where a red sandstone was set to mark the Initial Point of the 6th Principle Meridian. This base line was later extended to the Colorado-Utah border making it the longest base line in the United States., From the intersection point of this base line and the 6th P.M., the states of Nebraska, Kansas, and most of Colorado and Wyoming and some of South Dakota were surveyed. Other places of the 40th Parallel are: Philadelphia, PA., Boulder, CO., Ankara, Turkey; through the center of Peking, China; through the center of Spain; the southern tip of Italy; and the far northern part of Japan. , The original General Land Office surveys in Nebraska were completed in 1883 except for a few omitted section., The monument pictured above is now on the National Register of Historic Places.