Point of Beginning, Ohio

The measuring of most of America began in Ohio in 1785, at a surveyed marker called the Point of Beginning, where Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia meet. Marking the Initial Point began when state surveyors from Pennsylvania and Virginia agreed on where the north/south line dividing their states met Ohio’s boundary, on the north shore of the Ohio River. The stake they drove into the ground that day in 1785 has long since washed away, and the land is now owned by an industrial supplies company. A stone monument commemorating the survey point has existed nearby, where the state line meets a public road, since at least 1881. The current monument was installed in 1960, and is 1,112 feet north of the original Point of Beginning–the initial Initial Point, that marked the edge of the land claimed by the 13 original colonies, and the beginning of the west.