My Highpoints and Tripoints

As of 2018 I have visited 7 highpoints of the 50 United States:

1. Hawaii - Mauna Kea
2. Florida - Britton Hill
3. Indiana - Hoosier Hill
4. Arkansas - Magazine Mountain
5. Ohio - Campbell Hill 
6. Nebraska - Panorama Point
7. Missouri - Taum Sauk Mountain

I have visited 6 tripoints where the boundaries of three or more states meet:

1. Arizona - Colorado - New Mexico - Utah (known as the Four Corners)
2. Indiana - Michigan - Ohio
3. Illinois - Kentucky - Missouri
4. Colorado - Nebraska - Wyoming
5. Kansas - Missouri - Oklahoma
6. Arkansas - Missouri - Oklahoma

A Tripoint by the Side of the Highway

Southwest City, Missouri
October 15, 2016

The AR-MO-OK Tripoint

The location where the boundaries of the states of Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma meet is an easy place to get to. It is next to a highway with three numbers — Oklahoma State Highway 20, Arkansas Highway 43, and Missouri Route 43 — and across from the Corner Stone Station and convenience store.

Since it was easy to get to the tripoint, I will take the easy route in providing some facts about this state tripoint.

• This state tripoint was officially established in 1907 when Oklahoma was admitted as a state.
• The roots of the future state tripoint go back to the early 1800s when the east-to-west and north-to-south boundary lines were set.
• The east-to-west boundary line was established in 1819 when the Arkansas Territory was created, thereby separating it from the Missouri Territory. This boundary was set at 36 degrees 30 minutes, which later became prominent as part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
• The north-to-south boundary line was established in 1821 when Missouri was admitted as a state. The north end point of this boundary line was set at the mouth of the Kansas River as it enters the Missouri River (known as the Kawsmouth) and proceeded approximately 180 miles directly south to the east-to-west boundary between Missouri and Arkansas where it became the southwest corner of Missouri.
• In 1823 a monument stone was set at Missouri's southwest corner. Although the monument is weathered and difficult to read, you can still see "Misr 1823" on its north side and "Ark" on the south side.
• The Ozark Culture Club in 1915 memorialized the tripoint by constructing a concrete cuboid on the spot. The 1823 monument was placed in the center of the top of the cuboid.
• The local Lion's Club refurbished the tripoint in 1955 by adding a concrete pedestal and a circular concrete skirt surrounding the tripoint. The skirt shows the state boundaries as they meet at the tripoint with figures of the states in their right location.

View to north on Highway 43
Tripoint is on left (west) side of highway

Thee 1823 Monument Stone of the Southwest Corner of Missouri

View to east with Oklahoma is in the foreground, Missouri in the left
background, and Arkansas in the right background

KSMOOK (Kansas - Missouri - Oklahoma)

Cherokee County, Kansas
Ottawa County, Oklahoma
Newton County, Missouri
June 15, 2014

The Kansas-Missouri-Oklahoma tripoint inside the wood enclosure

If you drive along Interstate 44 and cross the Oklahoma - Missouri border, you can point to the northwest and say that Kansas is just over yonder. And when there are three states in the vicinity, most likely there is a tripoint ready to be found. In this case it is the boundary point shared by the states of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, a mere 850 feet north of Interstate 44. The story of this tripoint, like all tripoints in this country, starts with political subdivisions of the United States.

With the westward expansion of the United States came the further subdividing of America. It only takes two state boundaries to create a tripoint, and the western boundary of Missouri and the boundary between Kansas and Oklahoma meet to establish this tripoint. Missourians started things off in 1817 when Missouri citizens petitioned for statehood. They requested the western boundary of the state to be coterminous with the eastern boundary line of the Osage nation.The Missouri Territory legislature in 1818 submitted a memorial to Congress requesting statehood, but requesting to move the western boundary of the proposed state 60 miles to the west.

The request by the citizens of Missouri for statehood was tangled in a number of other political issues, which ultimately were resolved in the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The proposed constitution for the future state of Missouri established the western boundary of the state as proposed in 1818. However, Congress was not yet ready to accept this boundary, and like many other things in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the western boundary of the state of Missouri became a compromise between the boundary lines proposed by the citizens in 1817 and that proposed in the constitution in 1820.

Adopted by Congress and signed by President James Monroe on March 6, 1820, Section Two of the Missouri Enabling Act of 1820 defined the state boundaries of Missouri. The western state boundary was established at the mouth of the Kansas River as it enters the Missouri River (known as the Kawsmouth), thence northward and southward all the way to Arkansas. 

The 1938 National Youth Administration Monument,
50 feet west of the 2008 remonumented tripoint

Thirty-four years later Congress as part of the Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854 established the east-west boundary line between Kansas Territory and the unorganized territory to the south, which later became the state of Oklahoma. The boundary was set at the 37th degree of latitude and was offset from the southern boundary line of Missouri, which is at 36 degrees, 30 minutes. Between 1820 and 1854 the political issues facing the United States regarding future slave states changed substantially, and establishing territory boundaries at 36 degrees, 30 minutes was no longer relevant. Congress in 1850 established the northern boundary of the New Mexico Territory at 37 degrees, which allowed three states to the north with four degrees of latitude each. Congress continued this boundary line at 37 degrees for the southern boundary of Kansas to allow creation of four states with three degrees of latitude each.

So in 1854 the future tripoint between the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma was formed. Three years later the 800 members of an expedition surveying the western boundary of the state of Missouri were the first to find the Kansas-Missouri-Oklahoma tripoint. We had to wait another 80 years before the tripoint was set in the ground with a monument. The Depression-era National Youth Administration in 1938 built a rock monument on the spot where the three states met, or at least where they thought they met. This rock monument was discovered to be 50 feet west of the tripoint when the Missouri Association of County Surveyors remonumented the tripoint in 2004. Today you can step up to the concrete plate and place yourself in three states at the same time.

Standing in three states at the same time

The 2008 tripoint monument, looking north
along the Kansas - Missouri boundary

A Tripoint and a Highpoint in One Fell Swoop

Laramie County, Wyoming
Weld County, Colorado
Kimball County, Nebraska
July 7, 2013

Old Texas Trail marker in Pine Bluffs

Getting There

Here I am barreling down Interstate 80 soon to cross the Wyoming-Nebraska border like I have done a dozen times before. I continued going straight the dozen times before, but for this trip on the freeway I have planned my own detour. Twelve miles south of I-80 are two places on the geographer's bucket list, and I am now taking the time and effort to find those places before I continue heading east on the freeway.

I exited the freeway at Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, drove through town, found a historical marker for the Old Texas Trail, and now headed south on Laramie County Road 164 towards Colorado. As I started to feel like I was getting close to Colorado, I looked for the telltale signs of the state boundary line between Wyoming and Colorado. There were no signs welcoming me to Colorado (and no signs behind me welcoming others to Wyoming), but I knew I entered Colorado when things underneath me changed. I traveled from Laramie County Road 164 to Weld County Road 105, and the road transformed from pavement to a dirt / gravel mixture. A change in road maintenance is a sure sign of going from one governmental jurisdiction to another.

A Tripoint on Water

Fort Defiance Park, Cairo, Illinois   

November 19, 2011

Some tripoints aren’t easy to get to because they are on water (or is it underwater). The Connecticut-New York-Rhode Island tripoint is actually on saltwater of the Long Island Sound. Nonetheless, most water tripoints can be spotted from land, and I was satisfied with this approach for my first water tripoint experience. The tripoint of Illinois-Kentucky-Missouri is in the middle of the Mississippi River where the Ohio River joins it. From the southern tip of Illinois in Cairo, the tripoint can be easily seen from Fort Defiance Park (when the Mississippi and Ohio rivers are not flooding). You point southeast and somewhere within a half-mile of your finger is the meeting point of Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri. And I say you can check that tripoint off your list :)

The confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers as viewed from Fort Defiance Park
The tripoint of Illinois - Kentucky - Missouri is somewhere in the middle right of the photo

Web Links

Wikipedia - Tripoint  

The Four Corners, a Quadripoint

Teec Nos Pos, Arizona

December 27, 2001

What’s better than a tripoint? A quadripoint. Although there are 62 state tripoints, there is only one quadripoint where the borders of four states converge together. This spot in the United States is in the Four Corners region where the southeast corner of Utah, the southwest corner of Colorado, the northwest corner of New Mexico, and the northeast corner of Arizona come together. Being the only place where four states meet, the Navajo Nation has made the quadripoint a tourist draw worthy of a one-of-a-kind photograph. When my derriere was planted firmly in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, I knew no one else in America was in four states at that same exact moment in time.

The Four Corners

Web Links

Wikipedia - Tripoint  

Where Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio Come to Meet

Steuben County, Indiana   
January 6, 2012

In three states at the same time

Borders are made for snuggling, and some states snuggle for quite some distance. (The nation’s longest border between two states is the Texas-Oklahoma border at 715 miles.) This snuggling can be informal in some border areas where the locale blends the traits of both states into something that can’t be matched elsewhere such as Texarkana and Michiana. However, when three or more states come together, they must meet in a more formal place that comes down to a point.  
  

Where the borders of three states converge into each other, a tripoint, trijunction, triple point, or trifinium (take your pick) is created. There are 62 state tripoints in the United States with 35 on top of land, 24 walking on water, and three somewhere between water and land. Like visiting as many countries as you can or walking to the top of the highest point in every state, there is a certain allure to standing in three states at the same time. Although they may not number as many as the country baggers or peakbaggers, tripoint baggers have a passion to travel and visit each and every trio of states that come together to meet. Jack Parsell is considered one of the first persons to visit all 38 tripoints located on land, and he even wrote a guidebook called “Tri-State Corners in the United States” to help others who share his passion. No news yet on whether Mr. Parsell has navigated by boat to visit the other 24 tripoints located on water.