Yesterday, I celebrated my 51st birthday with a visit to the only existing
former international boundary monument located in the interior of the United
States.

Attached is a photo of a granite monument set on April 23, 1841, by a joint
commission of the United States of America and the Republic of Texas. It is
located on the dry segment of the current boundary between Louisiana and Texas
about 2¼ miles north of the Sabine River wet segment. It is about 170 feet
north of the point where Louisiana Highway 765 meets Texas Farm Road 31 at the
boundary a few miles north of Logansport, Louisiana.

The monument is actually perfectly vertical. The tilt of my camera was
influenced by the tilt of the steel pipe enclosure around the monument. The
letters "R.T." on the west side stand for "Republic of Texas." The letters
"U.S." appear on the east side. The inscription on the south side reads,
"Meridn. Boundary/Established A. D. 1840." The north side is blank. The
monument engraved "1840" was ordered in advance, but the commission did not get
it placed until 1841. The commission attempted to alter the "0" in the year
into a "1." The shaft is nine inches square and ten feet long, over half being
in the earth. The now-repaired crack running through the letter "d" in the word
"Boundary" occurred when early 20th-century loggers felled a tree on the
monument.

One of the US members of the joint commission that surveyed this boundary was a
young civilian civil engineer and native of Spain named George G. Meade.
Twenty-two years later as a Major General, he would command the Union Army at
the Battle of Gettysburg.

Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA