Tallahassee Meridian Initial Point, Florida


All of modern Florida was surveyed from this survey marker. It is one of 37 federal survey points of origin covering the USA (outside of the 13 original colonies), known as Initial Points, selected over a span of 150 years, to anchor newly acquired federal land to the legal and cartographic grid. The treaty made with the Spanish, transferring the ownership of Florida to the USA, was ratified in 1821, and in 1824 the federal government undertook the surveying program to legally measure and describe the land of the state. The Initial Point was selected to be at the newly-established seat of government, in what is now the state’s capitol city, Tallahassee. A site one-quarter mile east and one-quarter mile south from the future State Capitol building was selected to start the survey, and a wooden stake was set in the swampy ground. Lots in town went on the market a month later, and the American development of Florida began. Today, the Initial Point is in a park next to state offices on Meridian Road. The current monument was built in 1925 on top of a monument from 1892. The 1892 monument consisted of a one-ton boulder, hauled on a wagon from 20 miles away, and placed into a hole in the ground. The cardinal points (north, east, south, and west) were indicated with a cross carved into the stone, with the township and range numbers in the spaces between the lines. Research suggests that the monument constructed in 1892 (and thus the current one) is actually ten feet east of the original 1824 Initial Point location.