Four Corners

Ever touched the corners of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah all at the same time?

Bet you haven't!

The Four Corners Monument marks the point where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet. For a century, tourists have ventured to the spot to straddle them all at once, striking poses straight out of a game of Twister for the best and goofiest Four Corners photos.

Trouble is, the monument is a bit off the mark. Congress designated the meeting point of the states at a longitude of 109 degrees 03 minutes West and a latitude of 37 degrees North. But Chandler Robbins, the surveyor hired to find this coordinate in 1875, picked a spot 1,800 feet too far east, and that's where the Four Corners Monument was plopped down. 

Still, as the National Geodetic Survey pointed out in a statement in 2009, considering the primitive  technology then available to Robbins, "he 'nailed' the location."

Despite the error, the position of the monument officially established the boundary point between the four states at that spot.

As the NGS put it, "In surveying, monuments rule!"