Congress carved Nevada Territory out of Utah Territory in 1861, and President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed statehood in 1864, but it took three more years for the state to expand to its current size. The boundaries were poorly understood then and may still be uncertain. The courts were settling arguments in 1980, and change could still be coming in the east.
THE MISPLACED NORTHERN LINE
The northern edge where Nevada meets Idaho and Oregon is the oldest boundary line in the West. In 1819, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams negotiated a wide-ranging treaty with Luis de Onís, special envoy from King Ferdinand VII of Spain. The Adams-Onís Treaty set boundaries between Spanish and U.S. claims across the continent and the 42nd parallel became a line of division in the West. In the 1850s, it was the unsurveyed boundary between Utah Territory and Oregon Territory.
While it may be easy to decree a line in a treaty, marking it on the ground is not. In 1871, surveyors with the U.S. General Land Office, using astronomical observations, determined the position of Nevada’s northeast corner and marked the point with an 8-foot cedar post. Modern measurements show it was about 600 yards south of the intended position on the 42nd parallel. In 1873, a survey party started at the post and began tracing the line westward, marking it with mounds of earth and wooden posts. After walking and measuring for 310 slightly crooked miles, the party reached another post set in 1869 to mark the northeast corner of California. That placement was better, only about 160 yards too far south—excellent accuracy with the methods available at the time.
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