Four Corners is in the correct spot, mostly

FOUR CORNERS - Lovers of faraway places, faraway facts or faraway family vacations can all rest easy now.

"The Four Corners Monument that everybody goes and visits is exactly where it should be," said Randy Zanon, chief cadastral surveyor for Colorado's Bureau of Land Management. "That monument was set in 1875, it has been adopted by all four states, it's been decreed by the Supreme Court in 1925 that that is the monument of the Four Corners."

Cadastral surveying is boundary surveying of the federal interest lands and has been around since 1785.

On Monday, the Associated Press and a Salt Lake City newspaper reported the monument was 2.5 miles east of where the four states actually meet.

Zanon says legally according to the Supreme Court ruling, the marker is where it's supposed to be and will never be moved from the point where Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico meet. But technically, it's slightly off.

The National Geodetic Survey, an agency that maps and charts various locations, mostly for transportation reasons, agrees that it's slightly off, but not off by as much as 2.5 miles.

"The 2.5 mile discrepancy that was originally reported is not accurate," said David Doyle, chief geodetic surveyor for the National Geodetic Survey. "At most, the difference between the location of the monument and where the actual four states should meet geographically is approximately 1,800 feet."

"At the time the surveying was done and the monument was established, the surveyor couldn't take into account the size and shape of the Earth, as geodetic surveyors do now. However, for the time and the equipment available to him then, this was as precise of a location as could've been established," Doyle said.

If the Four Corners conundrum was news to you, as it was to us, it's nothing new to the surveying community. It's been talked about in those circles for more than 100 years.

"We've known that that monument has not been at the parallel of longitude that was degreed in state statutes since shortly after it was established in 1875, over 120 years," Zanon said.

So the next time you're at the monument, just forget the 1,800 feet detail and remember, while there's no denying the math, it's the maps that matter.

"I just want to assure everybody that's visited the monument or that's going to visit the monument in the future that when you stand there, you will be at all four states," Zanon said.