The Geodetic Center of North America

This marker points toward one of the most important spots on the continent for anyone who ever drew a map. Some eighteen miles southeast of here, on a ranch in Osborne County, a small bronze plate was set into the ground at a place called Meades Ranch.

For most of the twentieth century, that point was the anchor of North America. Beginning around nineteen oh one, every survey across the United States, Canada, and Mexico measured its position relative to this single Kansas station, the heart of what was called the North American Datum. It was chosen because it sits near the center of the lower forty-eight states. When mapmakers needed to know exactly where anything was, the answer began here. In nineteen eighty-three, satellites moved the reference point to the very center of the Earth, retiring the ranch from its quiet, continental duty.