100 Meridian West OK/TX Border

Welcome to James and Yiren's land walk! The purpose of this journey is to introduce the border of Texas and Oklahoma. We are attempting to adopt this borderline as a National Monument and commence a great circle of uninterrupted natural path around the globe called the Greenbelt Meridian.

We will mark four segments of the state line, and use interviews, photographs and moving images to define our mission. Meanwhile we will give firsthand impressions of marginal farmland, isolated communities, and local histories that have been able to stay off the radar from the rest of the world. This OK/ TX border would appear less than perfect for a Greenbelt Meridian, yet it is in reality tailor made for our project. We are dedicated to putting back a continuous path around the globe ... No roads, no fences, No Man's Land, No Shoes Land as a symbol of hope for the Earth carried forever into the future.

Date: Nov 26-28, 2014
Where: Erick, Texola, Sweetwater, Cheynne, Reydon, and Elk City in Oklahoma

Map of  100 meridian west (OK/TX border).

compass reading

Our coordinates were not exact enough to pinpoint the 100 meridian at this location. The road intersected our proposed Meridian at sharp angle, which was disorienting from our perspective. We started to map a line across the street  from north to south .

Eyes are the most valuable tools for alignment along our 100 degrees longitude.  

Eventually a truck travelling quite fast tore apart the line marking the greenbelt meridian, but the road was not well traveled. As with  other stops we made in our two days travelling, we collected visual data and were tolerated by the traffic.

***
Petitioning Department of the Interior, Barack Obama, President of the United States to designate the 100th Meridian at the Oklahoma and Texas border as a national monument and the first section of a global Greenbelt Meridian.

The only spot we found that had a sign posted for travelers coming into Oklahoma. This is considered part of the Black Kettle National Grassland, on the map.

A single point on the Meridian, near Reydon, OK.

A family coming to visit a brother in Reydon, OK for Thanksgiving all stopped at the stateline for pictures. They kindly obliged us a photograph on the Greenbelt Meridian, to define an otherwise featureless segment.

***

Life Along the 100th Meridian

***

The Indian Meridian Monument

The Indian Meridian Monument in Langston , Oklahoma

Washington  Irving was here!

Walk on the Indian Meridian Road in Meridian, Oklahoma

Searching for the Initial Point

Where: Hennepin, Oklahoma

The most important rock in Oklahoma: The Initial Point, is located in one of the least known spots in the state. This sandstone is located on the Murray and Garvin County line, seven miles west of Davis, Oklahoma. It is also about a mile and a half south of historic Fort Arbuckle.
In 1866, the Reconstruction treaties required the Chickasaws and Choctaws to survey and subdivide their land east of the 98th meridian. by 1870, preparations were made for the subdivision of the Indian lands into congressional townships and sections. Indian territory was so remote from any other established base lines and meridians that the surveyors decided to establish a fictitious base line and meridian. A point near Fort Arbuckle was selected as the starting or initial point, and a line that was surveyed north and south from that point was name the Indian Meridian. The Indian Base Line was placed about thirty-six miles north of the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude, and the intersection of these two lines was established as the Initial Point in Oklahoma.
( from Dr. Mark Micozzi's notes, Department of Cartography & Geography, East Central University)

James and I determined to find this most important rock in Oklahoma. We traveled through Altus, Lawton, Duncan and stopped at Hennepin. We asked the people in a cafe there and learned that the Initial point is on private land, " before Indian Meridian, Lazy S Ranch, you won't miss it". With fences everywhere and no way to contact anyone from the Ranch. As the sun set, we gave up finding the rock. We took the Indian Meridian Road north to Pauls Valley where it ended in front of a new Chickasaw casino, prematurely ending our adventure. We hit the highway and made it back to Tulsa without a hitch.