Warroad/Sprague Border Crossing, Minnesota

The Warroad/Sprague crossing on Highway 313, between western Minnesota and eastern Manitoba, is the easternmost crossing on the 49^th Parallel. West from here the border follows the straight line of the 49^th Parallel across the country for 1,200 miles, half the width of the continent. This part of the border was initially surveyed between 1872 and 1876, and was the last stretch of the boundary to be fixed along the contiguous United States. Though the 49^th parallel border could be the longest, straightest, physical line on earth, it is not perfectly straight, as it was based on surveying practices of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The accepted boundary, complete with its wanderings of up to a quarter mile from the true 49^th, is now fixed, set in a thousand monuments of iron, aluminum-bronze, steel, or concrete, anchored along its path, no matter how mountainous, or monotonous.