von schmidt monument historic park

Very unassuming and easy to miss, but worth stopping to read the markers. We were in Reno for a week, and made the drive up to Verdi and Dog Valley nearly every day - we loved it. We drove by the monument every day, and finally on the last day, we stopped to read it. I learned a lot about the amazing history in that area. Having spent my early elementary school years in Sparks/Reno, I knew all about the Donner Party and the many other pioneers who forged the way westward. I had been through Verdi countless times - on the old road and the interstate - but had never realized that the road through Verdi was part of the pioneer trail that the Donner Party had taken. By the way, we saw a lot of deer on our drives up through the area this time. Worth the stop to see the State line, and have a view of the daunting mountains those brave pioneers faced as they headed west through the area - Would our generation have been so brave? I doubt if I would have been. Those mountains are very intimidating!!

Each year, millions of motorists on Interstate 80 cross the California-Nevada state line as they speed between Reno and Truckee. We slowed down, exited at Verdi, and used our dashboard GPS to find the original California-Nevada state boundary marker.In 1849, the California Constitutional Convention specified the 120th meridian as the eastern boundary of California, from Lake Tahoe north to the Oregon border. In those days, it was complicated to plot a line of longitude one-third of the way around the earth from the prime meridian at Greenwich, England. Numerous partial surveys of the boundary were attempted, but none of them agreed. It wasn’t until 1981, that the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the 1872 survey by Allexey W. Von Schmidt as the official state line.On the western edge of Verdi, we located Von Schmidt’s original boundary monument. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the monument itself is a six-foot tall, four-sided, hollow, cast iron obelisk, cast by the Occidental Foundry of San Francisco. Von Schmidt handsomely engraved each side of the monument to indicate the California and Nevada state boundary, the longitude of 120 degrees west of Greenwich, and the distance north to the Oregon border.Historians have painstakingly restored the monument, and protected it in an attractive fenced and covered enclosure, within a pleasant historic park on Dog Valley Road. The small park includes polished black granite interpretive signs describing the rich history of the area, and a single picnic table under three towering Ponderosa Pines.We enjoyed our picnic in the shade, one-third of the way around the earth from Greenwich, and imagined Von Schmidt setting his initial survey monument here, without the benefit of dashboard GPS.Directions: Travelling west from Reno, exit I-80 at the East Verdi exit (Exit 5). Travel 2.7 miles west to Verdi and turn right on Bridge Street. Travel about 0.5 miles, cross the one-lane bridge, and turn right on Dog Valley Road. The state line monument and park are 0.3 miles down Dog Valley Road on the left hand side.