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The locally famous Indian Meridian in Oklahoma, the beginning and end of OK townships and ranges.

Chronicles of Oklahoma
Volume 5, No. 3
September, 1927
“INITIAL POINT” IN OKLAHOMA
A Bare Stone Shaft Locates Your Lot
By ALVIN RUCKER

Page 328
Where is the most important place in Oklahoma? Each person is entitled to one guess. Each guess is wrong, because the most important place in Oklahoma is not the guesser's home or place of business. The most important place in Oklahoma is also one of the most obscure and most seldom visited, and beyond question, one of the least known spots in the state.

Gather around, mates, and let's listen to a real bedtime story told by encyclopedists, historians, surveyors and soldiers. The most important place in Oklahoma is a point on the boundary line between Murray and Garvin counties. It is a short distance from the place known in history as Fort Arbuckle. From that point every foot of land in an immense area, including all of Oklahoma, except Texas, Cimarron and Beaver counties, is described in legal documents. The area includes Kansas and Nebraska. The highly important point is called the "initial point," suggestive of its importance. It is referred to more often than any other place in Oklahoma. Not an inch of land in the state of Oklahoma, the three Panhandle counties excepted, can be located without reference to that little known, seldom visited spot. The reference, direct or indirect, is in every deed or lease ever written to describe Oklahoma real estate, and will continue to appear, directly or indirectly, in every deed or lease, as long a, civilization, as now constituted, endures in Oklahoma.

In 1866, the federal government acquired from the Indians, by treaties, a large area of land in Indian territory and prepared to subdivide it into townships and sections, foreseeing the time when the whites would settle the land. Indian territory was so remote from established base lines and meridians that the surveyors decided to establish a fictitious base line and a fictitious meridian, the meridian to be known as the Indian Meridian, from which townships would be numbered east and west; the base line to be known as the Indian base line, from which ranges would be numbered north and south. Ranges and townships are similar areas, six miles wide.

A point near Fort Arbuckle was selected as the initial point, and a line surveyed north and south from that point, and the line was named the "Indian Meridian." It is about twelve miles, two townships west of the ninety-seventh meridian west of the Greenwich meridian. The base line is about thirty-six miles north of the thirty-fourth parallel of longitude, and the intersection of those two lines is called the initial point in Oklahoma. Neither of the lines falls upon a 360th division of the globe, based upon the Greenwich meridian and the equator, for the obvious reason that the Greenwich meridian and the equator are too remote to be handily used in describing townships and similar areas in Oklahoma. The
Indian meridian is recognized as far north as South Dakota, there being several towns named Meridian because the towns are close to the Indian Meridian.

The official description of the arbitrary point, taken from the surveyor's, field notes is:

"Initial monument at point between two small streams both having a northerly course, making a junction about twenty chains north.
"Set sandstone 54x18x18, marked on west side I. P., on east side Ind. Mer., and on north side 1870, in a mound of stones six feet in diameter and three feet high, from which flagstaff at Fort Arbuckle bears north seven degrees, thirty-seven minutes west. East end of Messa, bears north 46 degrees, 17 minutes west. East end of Messa bears north 47 degrees, 42 minutes west. East end of Messa bears north 55 degrees, 56 minutes west. Black oak 10 inches in diameter bears north 70 degrees, 11 minutes west 617 links distant. Rock on east side of brook marked thus (111) bears south 14 degrees, 12 minutes east, 1,365 links distant. Cedar eight inches in diameter just left of rock."

Chronicles of Oklahoma
Volume 5, No. 3
September, 1927
“INITIAL POINT” IN OKLAHOMA
A Bare Stone Shaft Locates Your Lot
By ALVIN RUCKER

Brought to our attention By GIS Specialist John T. Smith, OGInfo.com

An old corporate catch phrase that’s been around longer than “outside the box” is nimble:

nim·ble ˈnim bəl -
–adjective, -bler, -blest.
1. quick and light in movement; moving with ease; agile; active; rapid: nimble feet.
2. quick to understand, think, divise, etc.: a nimble mind
3. cleverly contrived: a story with a nimble plot.

What does nimble have to do with GIS you say?Well my brother told me right as I was graduating from high school that college really teaches you one thing and one thing only. He of course was speaking metaphorically about decision making. Being a student of the business college I can now see where he is coming from.

In the past GIS, or drafting in a previous life, has been tucked away in some back office where the “techs” that knew how to draw the lines on the map ruled supreme. Out put was easy and a map could be restyled at the drop of a hat. This was real power but not the power that many mid and upper level managers are demanding out of their GIS systems today.

The “aging out” of the baby boomers and the entry into management of the “young bloods”, who have been raised with a mouse in their hand, expect and even demand high-tech GIS be available for decision making. Back to the one thing college teaches you about decision making and that is “knowledge is power”. Companies that get their GIS data served out and on the desktops of decision makers are unleashing pure unadulterated power.

The brains of the “young bloods” are all wired a bit differently in that they know what a computer can do. Armed with knowledge of how a geospacial query works coupled with the granularity of the results generated this new breed of managers are demanding GIS on every desktop machine. Ten years ago if you would have dropped the word “polygon” in an oil company board room you would have been met with blank stares. Do the same today and you will get questions like “with or without attributes”? It is coming guys so hold on.

James H. Davis, Content
OGInfo.com