len i think the only thing that might be problematic here is the
ignorance & pretentiousness of the writer
& ultimately his confusion of boundary markers with road signs
for to begin with
there are in fact at least a couple dozen milestones several feet
tall all along the dc boundary
these actually produce a far greater frequency of primary
monumentation than most state boundaries could boast
contrary to his stated belief
the date of them all is 1792
for their general locations see
http://www.dcdar.org/boundary_stones_loc.htm
but note that the nw stones are numbered incorrectly on the map
tho not on the verbal descriptions of them beneath it
all the numbering sequences actually run clockwise
then you may want to check terraserver or topozone etc for their
precise positions
all of which do show up quite clearly on the usgs topos
if you are interested in any of these
the mentioned wisconsin avenue crossing falls roughly halfway
between milestones nw6 & nw7
so no wonder that neither the questioner nor the answerer
spotted or mentioned these biggies
but there are in addition the much lower stones at all major road
crossings & other prominent points
of the type such as the questioner at least evidently did observe
however
being usually less than a foot tall
these are easy to miss even when you pass right by them
& the answerer evidently does miss them all the time
assuming they havent been knocked down by traffic etc
the date of all these low ones is 1903
per bus&ss 1976
tho i suppose there could also be some more recent ones
& all that stuff about the road signs is of course irrelevant to the
topic that both the questioner & answerer began with
but merely some gratuitous association piled on top of it
however
just to answer that supposedly still more troubling question too
as everyone knows
road signs are often not only unhelpful but even downright
misleading
for ordinary navigational purposes
not to mention trypointing
when that sign was erected
it may have truly indicated the best way to get thru dc & on to
richmond
or it may not have
but no problem either way
incidentally
but more pointedly
i just realized there is probably 1 extra dc boundary marker not in
either of the above categories
situated at the tripoint with montgomery & prince georges
counties of md
& of the more obvious tripoints
dcmdvas is an unmarked wetpoint in the potomac
& the dcmdvan marker on the right bank has never been found
if indeed it still exists at all
--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "L. A. Nadybal" <lnadybal@c...> wrote:
> This appeared today in "DCWatch":
>
> Boundary Markers
> David Sobelsohn, dsobelso-at-capaccess-dot-org
>
> In last Wednesday's issue of themail, John Cleave asked
about a DC/MD
> boundary marker at Wisconsin and Western Avenues, NW.
Tellingly, he
> thinks the marker went up before 1928, perhaps much earlier.
My sense
> is that, unlike most states, DC has few markers, even on major
roads,
> to indicate that a motorist is entering the District (let alone
signs
> saying "Welcome to Washington"). A striking example is where
US-50
> crosses the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, US-50 becoming
New York
> Avenue and the BWP becoming Kenilworth Avenue. The sign
for New York
> Ave. says "To Washington." The sign for Kenilworth Ave. says
"To
> Richmond" even though a driver taking either route will enter
DC at
> pretty much the same time, and even though a driver taking the
> Kenilworth Ave. route will go clear across both SE and SW DC
before
> getting to Virginia (let alone Richmond). Neither route actually
has a
> sign indicating that the car has entered DC. I had to study a
map
> before realizing that taking Kenilworth Ave. would also get me
into
> DC. So my questions to themail subscribers are: where else,
besides
> Wisconsin and Western Avenues, NW, are there actual
boundary markers
> at the DC/MD border; are any of recent vintage; and are any
visible to
> motorists?
>
> Another, perhaps more troubling question: why does the sign
on a road
> going into SE and SW DC say "To Richmond" but not "To
Washington"?