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 Willamette Stone - Portland, OR
N 45° 31.170 W 122° 44.631
10T E 520005 N 5040694
The historic Willamette Stone survey monument has been through numerous repairs from vandalism and now contains a circular disk monumented on top of it and nearby commemorative plaque nearby that highlights the history of the stone monument.
Waymark Code: WMQ5Z2
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 12/26/2015
Views: 5
April 20, 1851, marks the day that John B. Preston rode into the Oregon Territory. Who is John Preston you might ask? If you look all around Portland and west of the Cascades from the California-Oregon boarder to Northern Washington you will see the landscape of all his work. John Preston was the Oregon Territory’s first surveyor general appointed by President Millard Fillmore in 1850.
With increasing settlement and passage of the Donation Land Claim Act, Oregon Territory desperately needed to extend the Public Land Survey System of 1785 that divided public lands into square miles parcels of 640 acres. Preston arrived in Oregon in April, 1851.
John Preston and his crew of surveyors spent four years surveying the western interior valleys of Oregon and Washington. What they established was how the Oregon Territory developed into townships and sections using the Rectangular Land Survey System.
 On June 4, 1851, Preston and his surveyor crew marked the starting point for their land survey by laying down true north-south, known as the Willamette Meridian and the intersecting east-west, the Willamette Base Line. They marked the initial point with a cedar stake. The stake was later replaced with a stone obelisk on July 25, 1885, which was eventually given the name The Willamette Stone (picture to the right).
After extensive online research I was able to discover that the original Willamette Stone (pictured right) still survives and is the square-shaped piece flush with the surface of the ground from which the current circular metal disk is monumented on!
There is much confusion regarding the Willamette Stone and the circular disk that is monumented on top of this last remaining piece of stone as evidenced by the numerous log visits on Geocaching.com datasheet and logs from the NGS datasheet. There is even a geocache located nearby and is dedicated to this historic site and is owned by the Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon (visit it here).
The Center For Land Use Interpretation website contains a wonderful biography of the Willamette Stone and goes into great detail explaining what happened to it over the years. It reads:
The monument at the Initial Point as it stands today was made mostly in 1956, when the nine-foot concrete slab was poured, and into which the various interpretive and commemorative elements, including the Willamette Stone, were embedded. Like many contemporary outdoor monuments, the recent history of the monument is one of modifications related to vandalism and repair. In the original monument from 1885, the Willamette Stone, an eight inch square, four foot long stone, was set in the ground and protruded upwards 24 inches, with legible engravings on its sides. It survived until 1951, when it was broken off by vandals, but the missing part was recovered. In 1956, the slab was poured and the stone was set in it, along with brass strips indicating the Meridian and Baseline, and a 28 inch bronze text plaque. In 1967, the stone was broken off again, and the missing part was not recovered. Instead, the top of the remaining stub of the stone was planed, and a brass plaque installed on its top (though the plaque was soon destroyed by a hatchet or axe). The large brass text plaque in front of the stone was pried out and stolen sometime in 1979 or 1980. In 1984 it was recast and reset, and the monument was re-dedicated in an event attended by the governor. In 1987, the remaining seven inches of the Willamette Stone’s protrusion was broken off flush with the concrete pad, and the big brass text plaque was stolen again. Repairs were made, and another re-dedication was held in 1988.
At the bottom of the stairs, at the end of the trail, is the nine foot square slab, from 1956, embedded with the remains of the Willamette Stone and other interpretive elements. Three benches surround the slab, each engraved with a name of someone important to the Initial Point. One of the names is C. Albert White, the historian of America’s Initial Points, who lived in Portland for much of his life, and visited this site often.
The bronze commemorative plaque monumented next to the disk and stone reads:
| WILLAMETTE STONE BEGINNING HERE, THE WILLAMETTE MERIDIAN WAS ESTABLISHED, RUNNING NORTH TO PUGET SOUND AND SOUTH TO THE CALIFORNIA BORDER, AND THE BASE LINE WAS ESTABLISHED, RUNNING EAST TO THE IDAHO BORDER AND WEST TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN.FROM THESE SURVEYED LINES, THE LANDS OF THE NORTHWEST WERE DIVIDED INTO TOWNSHIPS SIX MILES SQUARE, BEGINNING AT THE WILLAMETTE MERIDIAN NUMBERING EAST AND WEST. EACH FULL TOWNSHIP IS DIVIDED INTO THIRTY-SIX SECTIONS OF LAND ONE MILE SQUARE WHICH ARE NUMBERED STARTING AT THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF EACH TOWNSHIP AS SHOWN IN THE DIAGRAM ABOVE. DEDICATED BY GOVERNOR VICTOR ATIYEH IN HONOR OF NATIONAL SURVEYORS WEEK, MARCH 11-17, 1984. SPONSORED BY THE PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYORS OF OREGON, THE LAND SURVEYORS ASSOCIATION OF WASHINGTON, THE WASHINGTON COUNTY SURVEYOR AND THE MULTNOMAH COUNTY SURVEYOR. |
Another interpretive display is located at the beginning of a short trail leading to the heritage site.
Wikipedia also has a good writeup on the history of the Willamette Stone and can be visited here.
Monumentation Type: Stone post
Monument Category: Meridian Line marker
Accessible to general public: yes
Historical significance:
All townships throughout the state of Oregon and southern Washington were platted from the Willamette Stone, originally set as a wooden post on June 4, 1851, then later monumented as a stone post with the words 'BASE' and 'LINE' and 'WIL' and 'MER' etched onto the stone on July 25, 1885. The stone was vandalized in the 1950s and then stolen in 1987.
Monument Website: [Web Link]
County: Multnomah
USGS Quad: Portland
NGS PID: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=RD3152
Approximate date of monument: 07/25/1885
Monumentation Type (if other): Not listed
Monument Category (if other): Not listed
Explain Non-Public access: Not listed
Other Coordinates: Not Listed
Other Coordinates details: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
1. A closeup photo of the monument is required.
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2. A 'distant' photo including the monument in the view is highly recommended. Include the compass direction you faced when you took the picture.
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